A panel of eminent Bollywood filmmakers was unanimous that the multiplex wave in the country had allowed them to experiment more with themes and styles and draw audiences but urged that such films should not be typecast as “multiplex films” as that may end up doing injustice to the effort.

The opinions were aired today at a panel discussion, ‘Urbane themes, gloss and technical savvy topped with high-end pricing; is Hindi cinema increasingly the preserve of NRIs and multiplex audience?’, organised by the Express Group’s film weekly Screen as part of its 58th anniversary celebrations. The panel included filmmaker Kabir Khan, fresh from the success of New York, Sujoy Ghosh, maker of Jhankaar Beats and the upcoming Aladin, Little Zizou director Sooni Taraporewala and Chairman of Fame Cinema Shyam Shroff .

“Thanks to multiplexes, we’re now making films we couldn’t possibly have made earlier,” said Khan, who began as a documentary filmmaker and made a smooth transition to Bollywood with Kabul Express before delivering this year’s first commercial hit in New York. But asked what “multiplex cinema” really means, the panel was once again unanimous that the term is an artificial construct with no real meaning for filmmakers. Ghosh, however, agreed that certain kinds of films worked well only with a certain section of the audience. “A multiplex audience is usually more accepting of different kinds of films and is more aware of trends in global cinema,” he said.

Taraporewala acknowledged that while she owes much to the multiplex phenomenon which made the release of Little Zizou possible, there are drawbacks. “Multiplex cinema tends to get equated with elite cinema, because they’re more expensive than single-screens.” Shroff, however, defended multiplexes by pointing to their better sound and picture quality and also the fact that black-marketing of tickets had radically reduced. The panel agreed, though, that while a multiplex release made sense for a small-budget, independent film, big banner, mainstream projects did well everywhere.

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