‘In recent years, Indian cinema has had an extraordinarily positive development’

While the year 2020 had been a difficult one for people from all walks of life, the entertainment industry had to particularly reinvent itself. And this happened not just locally, but internationally as well. Argentine filmmaker Pablo Cesar says that the coronavirus has indirectly taught us many things. “We must look towards ourselves and think if we want a world equal to the previous one or really superior. And in that superiority is the creativity of the human being to be able to build a different planet,” he says.

Cesar, part of the international jury for IFFI 51 (International Film Festival of India) this year, says that Indian cinema has had tremendous growth in the last few years. “The Tollywood and Kollywood industries have grown alongside Bollywood and this is an important sign. There are great Indian film directors who strive to give films rich and aesthetic content,” he says.

The filmmaker is known for making critically acclaimed movies such as Equinox, the Garden of the Roses (1991) and Aphrodite and the Garden of the Perfumes (1998). But he believes that commercially successful films and art films do not have to be mutually exclusive.

“Art films can be commercial. It all depends having a compelling theme, which can even be somewhat “controversial”, and having famous actors. It also depends on the countries because there are places where how a film ends is also very important. There are dramatic endings that are not successful in many countries. Marketing needs to change its mentality and allow films that pose another view of the world. There is the most important point. Open your eyes and allow this to reach the

general public,” he says.