Assam-born actor Adil Hussain says that filmmakers from the north-east region don’t have the kind of budget to market their movies; neither do they have enough theatres to recover the cost.
Adil, who has acted in Bollywood films like Lootera and English Vinglish, points out that region-specific movies get acceptance from the audience around the globe, but that needs aggressive campaigning, which is not possible without money.
“Films which are region-specific, but made well, have a universal appeal,” Adil, who plays the lead role in Assamese movie Sringkhal, told IANS in a telephonic interview.
Adil believes, it is imperative for filmmakers to have good contacts to reach out to distributors like PVR Director’s Rare, which has footprints all across the country.
“PVR has a provision to release good films throughout the country via PVR Director’s Rare,” he said.
“The film has to be good in the first place. Then you need to know someone to approach the PVR establishment or a similar one who can take the responsibility to distribute the film across the country. It needs a lot of money,” said the actor, who resides in the capital with his wife and a son.
“Filmmakers in Mumbai as well as in the south spend a lot of money on advertising. Sometimes the money is more than the production cost of the film. Money for promotion plays an important role, which I feel the producers of the north-eastern region don’t have,” he added.
Usually the budget of movies in the north-east is small, and with the limited number of screens in the region, it is hard for producers to recover the investment.
“There are people who have made films at a budget of Rs 50, 000 or Rs 100,000. But the average budget might be Rs 35 lakh. At the most Rs 70 lakh, which is very rare.
