‘Dividing Cinema into Regions Is Not Fair’

Pan-India Films have now become a common word in everyone’s vocabulary after the path breaking success of movies from the South. Blockbusters like KGF, RRR and Pushpa have not only managed to enthrall the Indian audience but have given stiff competition to the contemporary Hindi Language cinema. Back to back Box Office duds like Shamshera and Dhaakad only point in the direction of the changing landscape of entertainment in the country. Veteran actor Manoj Bajpayee shared his views on the phenomenon of ‘Pan-India cinema’.

While talking to ETimes, the Gang of Wasseypur actor expressed, “It has never been north or south. For me, India is from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and not from Kashmir to Delhi. That’s how I see India. If Telugu films do well, I will be just as proud as when a Hindi film does well. Dividing cinema into regions is not fair. Good that this discussion has started because we are now coming to a conclusion that cinema belongs to everyone in India.”

The Aligarh actor further elaborated that if a film is dubbed in several audiences, that film automatically becomes a ‘Pan-India’ film irrespective of whether it’s Tamil, Marathi or Malayalam. He also explained that his preference in projects is always in lieu with the audience that can hail from any part of the country. Manoj shared, “Whenever I have chosen a film, I have always thought that my audience is everywhere. When The Family Man found its audience in all parts of the country, I felt very fortunate. People who speak different languages watched Family Man, and they liked it. And this is how it should be. Cinema does not belong to one region. Cinema belongs to everyone.”

Besides this, Bajpayee has a hectic year ahead with projects like Gulmohar, Kanu Behl’s Despatch, Joram with his Bhosle director Devashish Makhija, and Pahaadon Mein, and Soup, a Netflix series, his third collaboration with director Abhishek Chaubey after Ray and Sonchiriya.

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