Guneet Monga, producer of Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox, has championed the fast-growing new wave of Indian cinema.
Speaking to Screen on stage at the Zurich Summit, Monga said: “Since 2008, there has been a major shift in the number of Indian films outside of Bollywood that are generating strong box office. This new wave cannot be ignored.”
Monga, the co-founder of Sikhya Entertainment and CEO of Anurag Kashyap Films, added that the international opportunities for Indian cinema were considerable.
“In Germany, major Bollywood film My Name Is Khan made $500,000 at the box office, while The Lunchbox made $1.5m,” Monga told delegates at The Dolder Grand Hotel.
“The difference is huge and the opportunities are huge. We just need to establish an international distribution pipeline.”
India is the guest country of Zurich Film Festival’s New World View strand and includes titles such as Monsoon Shootout, produced by Monga, Title and Ship of Theseus.
The Summit also featured a focus on the opportunities in China, presented by Michael C Ellis, president and MD of the Motion Picture Association for Asia-Pacific.
Ellis discussed how 2,900 screens had been installed in China since the start of the year – 16 per day – and that box office had grown nearly 300% from 2009-13 with admissions up 131.3% during the same period.
“China is going to be too big to ignore,” he said, highlighting the latest Transformers movie, which made $299m at the China box office, representing 30% of the worldwide take and more than the $241m recorded in the US.
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