Bollywood to Budapest:
Transnational Circulation
and Film Culture
Mallika Padmanabhan
Communication Honors Thesis
Advisor: Nitin Govil
Introduction
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Why Bollywood?
Why Hungary?
Value in studying the link
between film industries and
economic transformations
http://www.world-links.org/taxonomy/term/234?page=1
http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/europe/european-union/hungary/map.htm
Main Questions
How has Bollywood used broader Indo-Hungarian
relations to emerge in a context with virtually no
diasporic demand?
How does Bollywood function differently in an
environment when it is dependent on policy rather than
popularity?
Argument
I argue that policy shifts towards neoliberalism in both
India and Hungary have enabled Bollywood’s recent
emergence in Budapest, but the politically and
economically-focused flows behind this emergence
have led to problems of representation on-screen.
Method of Argument
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Understanding the impact of similar deregulatory shifts
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Seeing the relationship between neoliberalism and
media flows
Analyzing contexts of Bollywood film production and
culture in Hungary today
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Critical moment in the 1980s
Film festivals
Location shooting
Observing effects of economic decisions on cinematic
products
My Research Blog
http://bollywoodandhungary.wordpress.com/category/hungaryindia-relations/text-soviet-union-and-the-third-world/
History of Indo-Hungarian
Relations
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1950s-1970s: Limited bilateral trade (Soviet influence)
1980s-1990s: Deregulation in both countries
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Neoliberalism as a way to boost transnational trade
1998: Bollywood as “Industry”
2000: First Indian Film Festival held in Budapest
50th Anniversary
Celebration of IndoHungarian relations,
2006
http://www.indianembassy.hu/html/TnCMinister/Press%20Release%20-%2024%20oct.htm
Film Festivals and Media Flow
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http://www.indianembassybudapest.org/index.php?option=com_news&task=detail&id=215
Government
collaborations dependent
on policy, not popularity
“Mediascapes” and
“financescapes”
Film festivals in a
transnational context
Bollywood in Hungary
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Location shooting
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Hungary: Act II on Motion
Picture, 2004
Aks (“The Reflection”),
2001, dir. Rakeysh Mehra
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam
(“Straight from the Heart”),
1999, dir. Sanjay Bhansali
Hungarian settings for
South Asian audiences
http://mrbrownmovies.com/movierpt03-07.html
“National Erasure”
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Displacement of a film location’s national signs through
the filming or editing process
“Italy”
http://www.destination360.com/europe/hungary/
“National Erasure” in Hum Dil De
Chuke Sanam
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Dir. Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Perf. Salmaan Khan, Aishwarya Rai, and Ajay Devgan. Bhansali Films, 1999.
Conclusion
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Cultural policy facilitates
Bollywood’s presence in
Budapest
Cultural flows that are
dependent on economic
flows enable disjuncture
(Budapest’s presence in
Bollywood)
Characteristic tension in
global media today
Aks screenshot acknowledging government
linkages involved in film production
Aks. Dir. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. Perf. Amitabh Bachchan, Raveena Tandon, and Manoj
Bajpai. Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited, 2001.