Aamir Khan defends Bollywood amid rising praise for regional cinema

In an era where regional films in India have started to gain more recognition, many debates have sparked concerning the quality of Bollywood films in comparison. Multiple actors and industry professionals, including Anurag Kashyap and Sanjay Dutt, have openly voiced the shortcomings of the Bollywood film industry.

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Though much criticism floats around, in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, actor Aamir Khan discussed the debate, acknowledging that there is scope to improve the art.

The 3 Idiots actor explained, “I am not saying we can’t be better filmmakers. Certainly, I think there is scope for us to be better filmmakers and learn from various industries. Having said that, is the quality of filmmaking any different across the country? Do you think that the quality of Hindi films is dramatically different from, let’s say, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Marathi?”

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He posed this question to the interviewer, who responded by citing the example of Mollywood films. She believes that, currently, that number of good Malayalam film significantly outweigh the productions coming from Bollywood.

The actor, though he acknowledged it, disagreed with her statement, stating that he does not believe that other film industries are producing better films than them. In fact, he says that the film industry has improved since the 1980s. “If you look at the quality of films we have been making…I’ll talk about the 70s and 80s when I came in ‘88. The bulk of films made then were the low of Indian cinema. Since then, we have improved. Earlier mainstream was a very narrow path to thread on. Different kinds of films are doing well. I think these are good things. There are ups and downs in every field; we are certainly going through a low, but it’s not new. These are cycles.”

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In the interview, Khan also expressed his desire to produce a Mahabharata franchise, with fingers-crossed that the production starts by the end of the year. Currently, the actor is gearing up for the release of Sitaare Zameen Par, rumoured to hit the big screens on June 20.

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