Ulf Dalquist wrote:
> Oops! I guess I was a bit unclear. Yes, India is the biggest film producer
> as far as I know. US films are *slightly* more spread outside their coutry
> of origin than Indian films, though.
 
Depends on what exactly one considers as "more spread". Indian films are
fairly well spread in Asia (and, as far as I know, had some viewership in
Eastern European countries/the former Soviet Union, at least before '89, no
recent data available to me), the Gulf Region and, if I am not mistaken,
Northern Africa. They are also spread amongst Indian communities in Britain,
the U.S. or Japan.
 
Comparing circulation in terms of viewership could be misleading, because a
considerable part of Indian film circulation is done via (sometimes legal,
sometimes illegal) video-rentals.
 
But of course, if one considers "large circulation" to mean "seen by
different audiences in different countries with different linguistic and
cultural backgrounds", I guess the US would be the top.
 
What I would like to know, additionally, is to what extent US-films are now
present in the Indian market. As far as I know, the dubbing of American
films into Hindi (let alone other Indian languages) is quite a recent
phenomenon, and I am curious how far it extends nowadays, and whether the
"local" film-industry has responded to this potential commercial challenge
in some way or another.
 
 
 
Birgit Kellner
Department for Indian Philosophy
University of Hiroshima
 
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