A peep into the evolution of Telugu film industry in the last 20 years doesn’t give you any interesting images. It might have produced some of the spectacular commercial hits. It might have changed the way films are made. It did achieve some success in technique, editing and making of films, competing with Hindi and Tamil film industries. But there is not much to boast when it comes to content.

Quick returns Money from the real-estate sector and from the fledgling services industry, funded the films. Economic reforms too, infused capital into the markets. Entertainment industry was one of the beneficiaries. Producers were more keen on getting quick returns rather than making good movies.

The early 1990s marked a transformation in the industry. Just around the time, a new generation of actors replaced N.T. Rama Rao, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Shobanbabu and Krishna who dominated the scene for about 50 years. Chiranjeevi, Balakrishna (N.T.R.’s son), Nagarjuna (A.N.R.’s son) and Venkatesh (producer D. Ramanaidu’s son) arrived on the scene.

They did act in off-beat films, but by and large, they led the commercial genre films and were responsible for increasing the budgets.

You see steep deterioration in content in the period, continuing a trend that started in the previous decade. There, however, are exceptions. Directors such as Sekhar Kammula, who quit a successful IT career to make films, were like a breath of fresh air. After making a very low budget film such as Dollar Dreams, he made Anand – a clean family entertainer. This, in fact, rekindled hopes in small filmmakers that there’s still a space for them in the cacophony of run-of-the-mill commercial films.

Sekhar Kammula, V.N. Aditya, Sreenu Vaitla, Sunil, Nandini Reddy and Bhaskar are some of the directors who swam against the tide and made films with sensible themes sans mindless violence. Women characters, which often get a shabby treatment in mainstream films, get a fair deal in these films. Majority of the new breed of directors such as Puri Jagannath, Rajamouli and Trivikram Srinivas continue the mainstream commercial genre that believes in huge budgets and star cast. They made some of the top grossers and spectacular flops.

Present day scene In the present generation, actors Pawan Kalyan, Mahesh Babu, Junior NTR, Prabhas, Ramcharan and Arjun and Raviteja, dominate the scene.

Rajamouli has been working on the project Bahubali (with Prabhas and Anushka) for the last two years. It is at present on sets and will take another year for completion. The multi-lingual film is touted to beat all film budgets in the country.

The industry reached the Rs 100-crore club populated mainly by Bollywood flicks this year. Pawan Kalyan-starrer Attarintiki Daaredi became the first movie to get there.

The success rate still continues to be in the range of 5-10 per cent, with the rest of the projects running in loss. A good number of films do not see the light of the day. While some of them are stopped mid-way, others don’t come out of the processing labs for want of funds.

The scope of survival for small film-makers is bleak. Even if they could manage to get financing for their projects, they are not able to realise their dreams as they don’t have access to screens to exhibit their movies. A majority of the good screens are in the hands of a few houses, leaving not-so-good cinemas for them.

The row over the bifurcation of the State had cast its shadow on the Telugu film industry. The industry also faces tough challenges in the form of home entertainment (TV and Internet) and piracy. Young film-makers are not afraid. They continue to come to Hyderabad for opportunities. Who is afraid if there are no big screens to exhibit their films, there’s Youtube and other Web channels to screen them for the world.

kurmanath.kanchi@thehindu.co.in

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