More Than Bollywood

Indian director Madusree Dutta has been described as one of the most successful female documentary filmmaker in India. Since 1993, she has made films on topics like identity, exclusion and gender roles.

DW-WORLD.DE: Why do you think that Bollywood films have been so successful in Germany?

Bollywood is only one center of cinema. India also has many other centers of cinema but Bollywood has international recognition, which has only happened in the last 10 years and is practically killing all other cinema. Why Bollywood is successful internationally is also something that bothers me. I think what is happening, is that when western Europe discovered Bollywood, they thought it was a sub-culture. They thought this is one cinema that was away from Hollywood, but equally popular -- if not more popular -- in the whole south of the world. But it is killing all other art expression. Either you are in mainstream, homogenized, Bollywood -- or you are out. And that is a very big problem.

So how diverse is Indian film?

India has many languages. Bollywood films are Hindi cinema and there are many people in India who cannot speak Hindi, so they don't watch Bollywood. They watch whatever is there native language in cinema, which are not 'big cinema' so they don't become internationally known. Bollywood makes films in what is recognized as national language in India -- that is Hindi. Which is in a way the government's strategy to push Hindi down everyone's throat. Another problem is that a large number of people who are living abroad in Europe and America, who we call NRI: which means Non-Residential Indian. They have lived in other countries for generations, they don't know what India is, but they have a concept of what India should be. For Bollywood, they are very important, because they can pay in hard currency.

What are you perceptions of the treatment of female actors in Bollywood films?

Bollywood is exactly like Hollywood -- it is extremely patriarchal and regressive film making. You will rarely see female film makers who have their standing. You will hardly see any films that are women-centric. In feudal times, there was folk theater, which was full of music and song and actually Bollywood is only a cinematic version of that. It is not only regressive to women, but also to minorities, people who are obese, people with disabilities, it is regressive to anyone who does not speak Hindi well.

The International Women's Film Festival in Cologne and Dortmund ends on Sunday. With a focus on Iran and India, about 120 films from 32 countries were shown.