Anupam Kher at the event

A panel of experts forecast current times are ripe for Indian cinema to accelerate its presence in the West, as several film industry experts and insiders exchanged thoughts and ideas on global film-making at the “Globalization of Indian Cinema: Opportunities for the West” conference held at the University of Cambridge recently.

Held at Cambridge’s Centre for India & Global Business (CIGB) at Judge Business School, several key players in Indian cinema spoke about the development of their industry at the first-ever conference completely dedicated to South Asia’s film industry and its growing presence in the global marketplace.

Among the speakers at the conference held on September 20th included Bollywood actor Anupam Kher, who has been credited with 27 films in 2009; Patrick von Sychowski, COO of India-based AdLabs; executive producer and media consultant Parminder Vir; independent film director Partho Sen-Gupta; and director Simone Ahuja.

Kher agreed it is an ideal time for Western investors to seriously consider Indian-based creative projects, mostly because the industry is far more developed than many outside India give it credit for.

“Indian cinema has really arrived globally, because Cambridge is holding this seminar,” Kher, who has starred in more than 400 films in his career, said at the conference. “If you have a script that has the ethnic and cultural heritage of India, put all your money into it at this time. This is the golden period of Indian cinema.”

Patrick von Sychowski

The veteran Indian actor added, while Indian cinema is unique in its approach to film-making, the difference does not make it any “lesser” of an industry than Hollywood. Instead, Kher told conference attendees he sees film-making in India fully involve itself with the best of the country’s culture, which in and of itself fosters a high level of creativity.

“It is very easy for a lot of people to criticize Indian cinema — to make fun of song and dance sequences,” he said. “But you need guts to do that, because Indian films are made for Indian audiences, and the Indian heart is larger than life.”

Echoing sentiments shared by many Indian actors and filmmakers, Kher also said it is actually much easier for a Bollywood star to transition into Hollywood, while Western stars may struggle in fully adapting to roles in India – mostly because of the difference in mentality. Specifically, while Indian cinema has its fair share of dramatic roles, many movies are also far more “cheesy” and “escapist” than American movies. By crude example, Kher roughly summarized the difference between American and Indian cinemas.

“A Shah Rukh Khan or an Aamir Khan can do what Al Pacino or Robert De Niro can do, but a Robert De Niro or an Al Pacino may not be able to do what Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan can do,” Kher said. “You have to understand the Indian psyche.”

Professor Jaideep Prabhu, who is the first-ever Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise at Cambridge, added, while most of the Western world is just waking up to Bollywood, the larger Diaspora of Indian cinema has existed for decades.

Partho Sen-Gupta

“This has been a place of creativity and ideas for a long time,” Prabhu said in his keynote address. “How do you balance improvised creativity, which a film depends on, with a more structured creativity, which is a business approach? We hope this event will start a dialogue between India and the west to identify, more systematically, the opportunities there are for collaboration.”

To move any prospective collaboration between East and West along, Kher added people need to stop thinking about how to imitate a largely successful project, such as Slumdog Millionaire, and instead focus on being actively creative.

“If you make a film like Slumdog Millionaire, the second film will never work,” he humbly told the audience. “You have to come up with a fresh idea.”

The interactive discussion of Indian cinema was what organizers had hoped for when moving forward with the invite-only conference of “Globalization of Indian Cinema: Opportunities for the West.” According to CIBG, about 50 people attended the conference, mostly industry insiders from Europe.

Cambridge University hosted the conference to indicate its willingness to serve as an intermediary between future collaborative projects involving Hollywood and Bollywood. It set up the Center for Indian & Global Business about ten months ago, tabbing Prabhu as the program’s director.

While Kher and the other panelists were optimistic about the growing presence of Indian cinema in the West, Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan was a little more candid about his thoughts on the standing of his country’s film industry with the rest of the world. In a recent interview with The Times of India, Bachchan stated Indian cinema has always had an international presence.

“Travel abroad, as some do, and judge for yourself the presence of Indian cinema in the world. Whether it is shining or not is not important,” Bachchan said in his interview with The Times of India. “The very fact that it is recognized, talked about, identified, celebrated, glorified is ample proof of (the) presence (of Indian cinema) beyond Indian shores.”

While Indian cinema has a presence outside of its own shores, Bachchan added he is concerned many people outside of the country are associating Bollywood with India as a whole, failing to recognize there is more to the country than just one of many regional film industries.

“I must admit that our films have, quite inadvertently, become almost a parallel culture of the nation, and many outside the country do give it that recognition,” he told The Times of India. “Our country is proudly called India or Bharat, and sometimes colloquially known as Hindustan. It has thousands of years of history, culture and existence.”

With Kher and Bachchan sharing their valuable wisdom and experience of Indian cinema, the only question left to answer is whether the experts and insiders who are predicting an impending “Hollywood-Bollywood” union will be correct in their forecasts.