Can Bollywood be the bridge that binds India and China?
- Indian filmmakers are eyeing the huge potential to sell cinema tickets in China after the runaway success of 2017 movie Dangal starring Aamir Khan
- So far Bollywood has targeted Indian expat moviegoers but never local audiences. That is changing
The warm welcome from Chinese fans, Khan said, underscores a growing trend of Indian filmmakers looking to the nation’s moviegoers as a potential new source of revenue. The star, nicknamed “King Khan” and an immensely influential figure in the Indian film industry, took part in the China-India Film Cooperation Dialogue as his latest project, Zero, brought down the curtains on the 9th Beijing International Film Festival, which notably lacked any Hollywood presence this year.
Throughout his trip the actor-cum-producer spoke of the potential for joint projects between the Indian and Chinese entertainment industries. Carefully sidestepping any political discussion on India-China relations, Khan signalled in interviews with China’s state-run media his view that cultural exchanges would make people-to-people connections stronger.
“People-to-people relationships, I think, 99 per cent gets sorted with cultural exchange, there’s no problem, or [through] sports exchange,” Khan told China Daily.
But he added that “you overplay the role of art and culture if you start putting it in the political arena, because it’s mutually exclusive”.