Nawazuddin Siddiqui says Bollywood films are not seen by western audiences: 'The big films still have not been able to...'

Independent films and directors bring fame to India but they don't get enough support once they return home from festival rounds, says actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who believes that movies by Anurag Kashyap, Payal Kapadia, and Neeraj Ghaywan have done more to crack the international market than the big Bollywood projects. According to Siddiqui, indie filmmakers depict characters from the streets and corners of India and reach audiences beyond just the diaspora. 

"A lot can happen if such films are supported. We dismiss them as festival films. They get limited release and the makers of such films don't get any support. But these are the films that bring fame to our country," the actor told PTI in an interview in Delhi.

His comments come days ahead of the Cannes Film Festival premiere of Ghaywan's Homebound in the Un Certain Regard section on May 21. Siddiqui, who has travelled to Cannes with eight of his films including Kashyap's much-acclaimed Gangs of Wasseypur, The Lunchbox by Ritesh Batra, and Aseem Ahluwalia's Miss Lovely, worked with Ghaywan in the second season of web series Sacred Games.

"Bollywood films are not seen by western audiences typically, these are the films that are watched whether it is Payal Kapadia or Neeraj Ghaywan's movies. These films create an identity for our country because the more local, the more global," he added. The 51-year-old actor is equally at home with critically-acclaimed films like Peepli Live, Monsoon Shootout, and Manto, as well as commercial hits such as Badlapur, Kahaani, and Bajrangi Bhaijaan.

"In our films, we don't see characters from our society. The characters that you see in our films don't exist in our streets and corners. If you make movies about India, then they earn a name outside because they are real films. The big films, the so-called commercial films, I am sorry, they still have not been able to crack that market but these small filmmakers have already done that."

Citing the example of his 2013 film The Lunchbox, also starring Irrfan and Nimrat Kaur, Siddiqui said many in the western world know about the movie. "These filmmakers, they may be small because of their budget but they are big filmmakers because of their mind. And these independent filmmakers bring glory to India and they will keep doing that. If I travel to a small film festival in Florida, people there know about Anurag and we should try and understand why people know him even in a small film festival outside. These people perhaps don't know the big Bollywood directors here but they know about Anurag and today, they know about Payal Kapadia or Ritesh Batra."

As an actor, Siddiqui said he has tried featuring in many indie projects for little or no money because he felt it was important to support this kind of cinema. "You get the satisfaction as an actor because you can face yourself and say 'I'm doing the kind of films that initially drew me to become an actor.' You do other kinds of films for survival and, of course, you should do them because it is important to have a balance. And I am not criticising those movies. They are also good movies but you should keep balancing as an actor and director. I have always tried to do that."

The 78th Cannes Film Festival will conclude on May 24.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from PTI

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