Since the past few months, the Hindi film industry has been a victim of the “boycott Bollywood” trend with celebs like Aamir Khan, Ranbir Kapoor to Akshay Kumar coming under its radar. It has led to their films being boycotted, thereby leading to a lower footfall in the theatres. Several filmmakers now worry about telling the stories they want amid the anti-Bollywood wave.
However, filmmaker Hansal Mehta, who has been working in the industry for three decades, is of the opinion that it’s a “transitory” phase for Bollywood and the industry will emerge stronger out of it.
“It is disturbing to say the least,” Mehta told Indian Express, adding, “The kind of stuff that is written on social media, some of it even surreptitiously and otherwise, with the endorsement of some of our own colleagues. It is disturbing but I do also feel that a lot of it is also social media, very manufactured.”
The filmmaker maintained that a good film will draw an audience no matter what. For instance ‘Brahmastra’, which was released amid heavy social media hate, managed to rake in huge numbers, and turned out to be one of the biggest Bollywood hits of the year.
Mehta asserted that Bollywood is not unaware of setbacks. It was under heavy scrutiny in the late ’90s after music mogul Gulshan Kumar was shot dead, and in early 2000s when film financer Bharat Shah was arrested for his alleged nexus with the underworld.
“What is happening in this diversion, this madness, our fear is getting the better of us in being able to tell our stories the way we want to, in making the films the way we want to. It is a transitory phase; we will emerge out of it. It is a resilient industry,” he said.
Mehta signed off, “What is important is to not lose focus of our main job: That is to tell stories, whatever the counter point. Whether your film is out and out propaganda, or it is completely counter to the propaganda that is being fed to us. I feel in the quest to serve a certain agenda, we have forgotten that we are actually making films for audiences.”
The director is helming ‘Captain Indian’, starring Kartik Aaryan, apart from doing a film with Kareena Kapoor Khan as the lead.
