After carving out a niche in UK and USA, Bollywood has now entered the Polish market with Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, which was released here recently. The posters of Kajol and Kareena Kapoor are visible all over the capital.
This is the first time a Bollywood film with Polish subtitles is being exhibited in five places in Poland simultaneously.
Big publicity has been given to this movie and the name has been changed into Sometimes Sunshine and Sometimes Rain which is very appropriate for the Polish audience who understand this everyday idiom to grasp the nuances of life and which is typical to Polish weather also.
The media coverage, which includes TV commercials, is fantastic. Very rarely do foreign films get such massive publicity. The CD of this film has been released at the same time and Polish FM radio stations are constantly playing the songs, particularly, You are my Sonia and Shawa Shawa.
"The real problem is the length of the film and to sustain interest for 210 minutes is a huge task," says Anna Bem, an Indian film fan who has seen more than 100 Hindi movies when she lived in India.
"The fact of the matter is most of the people have never seen an Indian movie with dances, songs and absolutely melodramatic scenes. Their curiosity is leading them to movie theatres, rather than anything special," said Stanislaw Tokarski, a specialist on India at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
{{/usCountry}}"The fact of the matter is most of the people have never seen an Indian movie with dances, songs and absolutely melodramatic scenes. Their curiosity is leading them to movie theatres, rather than anything special," said Stanislaw Tokarski, a specialist on India at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
{{/usCountry}}Indian Ambassador Anil Wadhwa told IANS that 18 Bollywood films have been selected to be exhibited in the Polish market this year.
"We are quite happy with the Polish response so far and let us hope the Polish audience will get hooked to our movies and songs."
Meanwhile, Dialog Publishers here have brought out Shashi Tharoor's book Bollywood in the Polish language with a scene from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.