Independent films and directors bring fame to India, but do not get enough support after returning home from the festival, says actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who believes that Anurag Kashyap, Payal Kapadia and Neeraj Gawan’s films have more than to crack the international market than big Bollywood projects.
According to Siddiqui, Indie filmmakers depict the characters of the streets and corners of India and only reach the audience beyond migrant people.
The actor told PTI in an interview here, “If such (independent) films are supported, a lot can happen. We reject them as festivals.
His comments come in the United Nations’ fixed relationship section on May 21, a few days before Ghaywan’s “Homebound” Cannes Film Festival premiere.
Siddiqui, who has traveled to Cannes with his eight films, included Kashyap’s much awaited “Gangs of Waspur”, “The Lunchbox” by Ritesh Batra, and Asim Ahluwalia’s “Miss Lovely”, worked with Ghaywan in the second season of the web series “Series”.
He said, “Bollywood films are not usually seen by Western audiences, these are films that are seen whether these are Payal Kapadia or Neeraj Ghaywan films … These films make an identity for our country because more local, more global,” he said.
The 51 -year -old actor is equally at home with seriously acclaimed films like “Peepli Live”, “Monsoon Shootout”, and “Manto”, as well as commercial hits like “Badlapur”, “Kahani”, and “Bajrangi Bhaijaan”.
“In our films, we do not see the characters of our society. The characters you see in our films are not present in our streets and corners. If you make films about India, they earn a name outside because they are real films. Big films, so -called commercial films, I am sorry, I have not been able to crack in that market, but they have still not been able to crack in that market, but these small filmmakers have not been able to cracks before.” Citing the example of his 2013 film “The Lunchbox”, including Irrfan and Nimrat Kaur, Siddiqui said that many people in the western world know about the film.
“These filmmaker (Indi), they can be smaller because of their budget, but they are big filmmakers because of their brain. And these independent filmmakers bring glory to India and they will continue to do so.
“If I visit a small film festival in Florida, the people there know about Anurag and we should try and understand that people also know him in a small film festival. As an actor, Siddiqui said that he had tried very little or without money in many Indie projects because he felt it was important to support such cinema.
“You get satisfaction as an actor because you can face yourself and say that ‘I am doing films that initially attracted me to become an actor’.
“You do other types of films to survive and of course, you should do them because it is important to have a balance. And I am not criticizing those films (commercial films). They are also good films but you should maintain balance as an actor and director. I have always tried to do so.” The 78th Cannes Film Festival will end on 24 May.
(This report has been published as part of an auto-linked syndicated wire feed. Except for the headline, the material has not been modified or edited by ABP Live.)
