The international Indian film academy awards – known as the Bollywood Oscars – are to be held in India for the first time in their history this week.
Mumbai will host the 20th IIFA awards ceremony on Wednesday, where the megastars of a booming Hindi film industry will celebrate another bumper year, including in huge markets such as China. The event has been held in countries around the world since it began in 2000, with previous host cities including London, Toronto and Singapore, and most recently Bangkok.
With nearly 1,800 titles released in 2018, India has the biggest film industry in the world in terms of the number of movies made. The industry grew 12.2% last year, including not only Hindi-language movies but also titles in regional languages such as Tamil and Telugu, according to a report released in March by Ernst & Young (EY) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI).
The huge south Asian diaspora in North America, Britain and the Gulf region has traditionally been the major overseas market. Blockbuster releases in parts of North America and Britain are huge events, with passionate fans often queueing for hours.
But Indian films have also been making huge inroads elsewhere – most notably in China, where the black comedy Andhadhun, nominated for best picture at the IIFA awards, grossed almost $50m (£40m) .
Aamir Khan, the star of the two top-grossing Indian films in China, has an ardent following there and is known by many as “Nan Shen”, or male god.
The film distributor Akshaye Rathi said the industry had also seen growth in many European countries and in Canada, New Zealand and Singapore thanks to the south Asian communities there.
“Now it is just a matter of time before we focus on the wider populations in these countries,” Rathi added.
In India itself, with its population of 1.3 billion, there is also massive potential for growth. According to the EY-FICCI analysis, industry revenues are expected to grow from 174.5bn rupees (£2bn) in 2018 to 236.1bn rupees in 2021.
Other nominees for best picture at the IIFA awards include the spy thriller Raazi, the swashbuckling epic Padmaavat, and Badhaai Ho, a comedy-drama about middle-aged motherhood. They show how Bollywood has long since moved from the cliched all-singing, all-dancing films of the past.
There were fears for the industry when major streaming services arrived in India a few years ago, changing the way many Indians consume films. But the likes of Netflix and domestic players such as Hotstar have instead been a shot in its arm, providing a new medium for releasing films and more money for new productions. Unlike regular cinematic releases, they are not subject to India’s notoriously strict censors.
Revenues from the sale of digital rights grew nearly 60% in 2018, according to the EY-FICCI report, with Amazon Prime and Netflix among the major buyers.
The streaming giants have also started producing original Indian content. Netflix, for example, recruited the superstars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Saif Ali Khan for its acclaimed series Sacred Games.
Last week, Netflix signed a deal with Karan Johar, one of the highest-profile producers in Bollywood, to produce films and series exclusively for its platform.
“It’s going to be P-H-A-T – pretty hot and tempting,” said Johar.
