Hindi cinema was practically unheard of in pre-1950 Britain, with cinemas showing mainly British and Hollywood features. As families migrated to the UK from India, in the quest to quench their thirst for entertainment, Indian communities started to organise film evenings, at which the latest Bollywood hits would be screened in houses and community centres using projectors.
Yash Chopra and Karan Johar shouldered the responsibility of presenting the UK on celluloid to Indians and the diaspora as they vividly shot some of their most successful films in Britain. Today, shooting Bollywood movies in London is a regular activity for filmmakers and is almost a ritual. Having a wax statue at Madame Tussauds in London is more like a crucial milestone in the lives of Bollywood celebrities, without which their careers aren’t declared a hit. The wax museum is home to statues of every single A-list Bollywood artist.
Ashvin Devasundaram, Senior Lecturer in World Cinema, Queen Mary University of London told Asian Voice, “Bollywood has been enduring in its engagement with the diasporic Non-Resident Indian (NRI) demographic in the UK, especially in the 1990s through extravagant family melodramas set in London. Over the recent decade, a new wave of independent Indian films has gained visibility in the UK, with socio-politically attuned and often thematically controversial films such as Lipstick Under My Burkha being showcased at the UK Asian Film Festival (UKAFF). The BFI India on Film initiative, part of the UK-India Year of Culture 2017, also featured a range of Indian Indie films. These avenues of accessibility have helped introduce UK audiences to the diversity of Indian cinema beyond Bollywood.”
However, due to the pandemic, three months ago, in a story published in The Guardian, it was reported that UK cinema closures have delivered body blows to Bollywood and the immediate future for Bollywood in the UK now looks particularly bleak.
One cannot forget the major film festivals that bring specially curated Hindi cinema to the UK with the London Asian Film Festival and London Indian Film Festival (Bagri Foundation). London is home to celebrated scholars, authors and journalists in Hindi cinema, including author Lalit Mohan Joshi, Rachel Dwyer, Rosie Thomas, Nasreen Munni Kabir, Suman Buchar and more veterans who have kept the essence of Hindi films alive in the UK all these years.
The programmes and events conducted by The Nehru Centre London in association with the Indian High Commission in the UK, British Film Institute, South Asian Cinema Foundation and the BBC are the pillars of Bollywood’s shadow over the UK-India partnership.
Premier institutions like the University of Westminster (that runs the CAMRI programme for scholars) and SOAS in London are home to Hindi cinema researchers in the UK. Last, but not least, the insanely famous Bollywood nights, Bollywood themed weddings and fashion shows are the heart of entertainment in the UK.
