In this age of globalisation, it is worth noting that both the Indian films selected at the 66th Berlin Film Festival this year — Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat (Wild, Marathi) and Jayaraj Nair’s Ottaal (The Trap, Malayalam) — are very local films. They have not been anywhere near a script or co-production lab, nor have any foreign funding. Both films got rousing ovations and full houses at their screenings here in Berlin, so local can be very global. It is important that all the cinemas — Bollywood, international co-productions, and independent, regional films — be offered to audiences at festivals and at home. Good regional films can have locally rooted stories, original voices and rough textures, which may be smoothed out at labs, with foreign funders influencing the narrative. In fact, I raised this issue at ‘India’s Big Chance’, the European Film Market Industry Debate at the Berlin Film Festival last week.

A film poster of Sairat