Jollywood, the nascent film industry of Jharkhand, is sustaining only for the sake of its name as most of the regional films made these days are imitating either Bhojpuri or Bollywood culture, especially with the cheap popularity of body exposure.
Explaining the line of difference among the local fiction-based cinemas released in the present scenario the first Jharkhand Director Vinod Kumar to produce Hindi film named ‘Aakrant’ said, “Re
cent regional language films are made in digital format known as ‘video albums’ ranging within a budget of Rs 10,000 to 50,000 and rarely depict the original flourishing culture of Jharkhand. They are more inclined towards the ‘copy paste’ medium of Bhojpuri films. Santhali language films produced in Jamshedpur region are still doing better in grabbing the tribal culture or else the low technical quality of Jollywood films is not worth enough.”
Accepting this fact, Dinesh Deva who has been working as an actor in Jollywood films for past 12 years and is playing a role in first Kurukh language feature film titled ‘Bunga re Bunga’ (Run dear run) which is scheduled to release after three months said, “The concept imitating Bhojpuri films regarding body exposure is necessary so as to attract audience.”
Highlighting on the Bollywood film imitation style as a commercial value, Actress Saroj Jha who is constantly acting in nagpuri and Hindi films said for more than 10 years said, “It becomes a compulsion for the Jollywood filmmakers to prepare films in ‘Bambaiya’ (Bollywood) style except for the audio in regional language as the less number of audience watching such films are not interested in viewing the folk culture of this region in the films. Infact, imitation is considered symbolic.”
There are 14 languages, 16 folk music styles, 14 folk dances and 9 major festivals in the state which are generally captured as film making theme in Jharkhand.
Contradicting the views of above film fraternity members, National Awardee Jharkhand Filmmaker ShriPrakash who is actively working for promotion of documentary and fictionous movies saluted the so called feature film makers who are making film on their own initiative inspite of getting no support from the state government and its bureaucrats. “Even though local films are being copied in the path of Bollywood and Bhojpuri, it has atleast kept the spirit of film making alive here by the not-so-famous artists of the state,” said ShriPrakash.
Notably, last year in the month of September during the tenure of Former Chief Minister Arjun Munda’s government rule, Munda had shown keen interest for constructing an outdoor film studio which has remained in backdrop since long. land allotted for this dream project was supposed to be at two villages of Patratu block in Ramgarh district to promote the regional languages but unfortunately state government’s take is on hold since the control of President’s rule has become the guardian power of Jharkhand.
“local film people had also approached the government for framing a Film Policy wherein film people from outside the state would have to register themselves in order to shoot here which would further contribute in generating state revenue and thereby provide financial assistance to the local film fraternity artists,” conceded Film Director Sushil Ankan who is also the owner of JollywoodJharkhand website.
