(Dhaka) Thousands of spectators flooded the cinemas of Dhaka on Friday for the release of Pathanan Indian blockbuster starring Shah Rukh Khan and the first Bollywood film to be widely distributed in Bangladesh in more than 50 years.
This spy film, directed by Siddharth Anand, broke all box office records when it was released in India in January.
Dhaka had banned Indian films shortly after its independence in 1971, bowing to lobbying by local filmmakers, even though India had supported Bangladesh in its war of independence from Pakistan.
“I’m excited, this is the first time a Hindi film has been released in Bangladesh! Sazzad Hossain, an 18-year-old student, said in front of the Vedette Cineplex in central Dhaka, “I’m going to see Shah Rukh Khan on the big screen for the first time! »
The output of Pathanthe first film with Shah Rukh Khan for four years, was eagerly awaited by his fans, many around the world.
The 57-year-old actor, nicknamed ‘King Khan’ and ‘Badshah’ in India, stars alongside actress Deepika Padukone and action comedian John Abraham.
Bangladeshi cinemas are in the doldrums, local production fails to compete with the splendor of Bollywood or seduce an aging Shakib Khan, the only profitable star of the national industry.
Some theaters have even illegally shown pornographic films to stay afloat. More than 1,000 have gone out of business in the past twenty years.
“It was the fair”
Under the posters of jinna new Bangladeshi film at the Modhumita Cinema Hall, once Dhaka’s most prestigious hall, were dragging a few heroin addicts this week.
“Barely a few rows are occupied. Nobody comes to see these local arthouse films and mediocre plots,” confides a cinema employee.
Yet cinemas have long been at the heart of Bangladeshi social life.
“This room was like a meeting place for the community of Old Dhaka,” Pradip Narayan told AFP in front of the Manoshi Complex, a century-old cinema transformed into a market in 2017.
“Women came at night to watch movies here. Our mothers and our sisters came from neighboring regions, and when the session ended at midnight or half past midnight, it was fair time here,” recalls this neighborhood shopkeeper.
“A woman even gave birth in this room. Such was the craze for cinema at the time,” he continues.
In 2015, the authorities tried to lift the ban on Indian films after the success of two Bollywood films shown in some theaters, but the anger of local stars forced them to end the initiative.
The government finally issued a decree last month authorizing the import of ten films a year from India or South Asia.
“It would be a game changer”
“In Pakistan, the number of cinemas has dropped to 30-35. Then they allowed Indian films to be imported in Hindi,” Information Minister Hasan Mahmud explained. “Since then there are about 1200 and the quality of Pakistani films has also improved.”
Pathan was released in 41 theaters across the country and many screenings in the capital are already sold out, says distributor Anonno Mamun.
Permission to screen Bollywood films would be “a game-changer”, he told AFP, “everyone likes Hindi films here. Many also love South Indian films”.
Modhumita Cinema owner Mohammed Iftekharuddin, former president of the Bangladesh Theater Operators Association, hopes for a turnaround.
“I think 200 to 300 more theaters will reopen after this,” he predicts, “monopoly is destroying business. When there is competition, trade will work”.
But Bangladeshi filmmakers are worried and some are threatening to demonstrate wrapped in shrouds to announce the death of the local industry.
“They don’t know that the Mexican film industry was destroyed after the market was opened up to Hollywood productions,” argues Bangladeshi director Khijir Hayat Khan.