Regional films can get us the Oscar, say experts

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">NEW DELHI: Good reginal films can bring Oscars to India rather than the commercial run-of-the-mill movies, according to experts. <br />"There has to be change in the policy during the selection of films for the Oscars," said Assamese film-maker Jahnu Barua here on Wednesday at a discussion on "Cinemas'' of India and their uniqueness".<br />Regional movies should be send to the Oscars, he said, asking "why other countries should see Indian cinema as just Bollywood".<br />"Whoever coined the term ''Bollywood'' has done a great damage to films from other regions of the country," he added.<br />The problem, according to P K Nair, former director of the National Film Archives, lies in making the selections.<br />"Most of our entries at the Oscars have been commercial films.Even the masterpieces of a great film-maker like Satyajit Ray were not sent to the Oscars," he said.<br />Over the selection of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Lagaan</span>, film critic Mythili Rao said <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Monsoon Wedding</span> would have been a better bet as it had already been greatly appreciated in the US. However, there are certain areas in which regional films need to improve, foreign delegates at the film festival said.<br />About how audiences in the west receive Indian films, an official from the Rotterdam Film Festival, Radha Sesic, said: "Films from India are known for over-acting. That is one thing that should be remedied."<br />Yves Thorawal, jury member for the Asian competition section at the International Film Festival of India, said art films in India have become repetitive and hence boring.<br />"Films need to change with the times. They are lagging behind Bollywood technologically which is one area where they have to do a lot of catching up," he added.<br />Film-maker Anwar Jamaal expressed the view that the loss of originality in films is to be blamed on market forces.<br />"Terms of film production are dictated to us. Satyajit Ray became the film-maker he was because he worked on his own terms," he said. </div> </div>