Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada cinema are no more stereotypically referred to as South Indian cinema. In fact, with the emergence of OTT/streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus Hotstar, Zee5 and MX Player, southern cinema/regional cinema has become pan-Indian cinema. If you’re a movie geek who follows film critics in India, you must have noticed a paradigm shift in reviewing, that’s to say that mainstream Hindi film critics are now thriving on movies produced down South. From Anupama Chopra to Mayank Shekhar, Raj Sen and Shubhra Gupta, every film critic is now not missing out on any south release, so much so that the internet trends for YouTube creators also seem to be reflecting a rise in views on review videos for southern cinema as compared to mainstream Bollywood films.
Content in the Malayalam industry was always considered to be top-notch by many Bollywood stars even before the onset of OTT which opened floodgates of an exceptional amount of variety with subtitles across platforms when it comes to south Indian films. With the Bahubalis and Jallikattus of the world, mainstream commercial Bollywood filmmakers are in for a tough fight with the rising popularity of South Indian content, which is now being touted as pan-Indian. Not to forget, filmmaker Lijo Jose Pellissery's Jallikattu, was India's official entry in the Best International Feature category at the 93rd Academy Awards.
Filmmakers like Karan Johar have collaborated with actors like Vijay Deverakonda, and filmmaker Puri Jaganandh for Liger. Actors like Alia Bhatt are now starring in Telugu-language period action drama films directed by S. S. Rajamouli. Umpteen superhits from the south are now in the pipeline to be remade in Bollywood. In fact, interestingly, Lokesh Kanagraj’s Master (2021) film was the first blockbuster amid the pandemic that was released at the theatres, which surpasses the laurels of the Hindi film industry.
In a recent move, while Prime Video continues to enjoy the success and popularity of films in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada, Netflix India has opened up a separate social media handle to give impetus to its slate of South Indian films.
A Netflix spokesperson exclusively told Asian Voice, "At Netflix, we are fans of entertainment just like our members. They engage with our stories, storytellers and stars in fun, interactive and meaningful ways through the Netflix India social channels. As we expand our film slate to have amazing original and licensed films from South India, we heard from many of our members and fans that they would like to engage with us more on these films. This is why, while our existing channels will continue to be a place for conversations on South Indian language films, our new Twitter handle, Netflix India South (@Netflix_INSouth), will be a dedicated space to engage more deeply with audiences."
In an article published by LiveMint, journalist Lata Jha reported, “It is an early sign that the pandemic has the potential to leave behind a very different cinema landscape than the one that existed in India at the start of 2020. With regional language filmmakers seemingly more willing to take risky bets and innovate, Bollywood’s dominance may get cut down to size.” She also went on to say that “quicker recovery, compared to Bollywood, is evident not just with south Indian films. This August, drama thriller Detective became the first Bengali language film to skip a theatrical release and premiere digitally on video-on-demand platform Hoichoi.”
It’s not regional anymore? Is it? It’s pan-Indian cinema.
