Bringing Bollywood to Leicester:

1
Bringing Bollywood to Leicester Reflections on
localized strategies of engagement between
regional cultural economies and transnational
cultural industries.
Jaideep Mukherjee Centre for Mass Communication
Research University of Leicester Cultural
Diversity and Creative Industries Seminar De
Montfort University / 13 Dec 2004
2
Genesis of the project

• Leicester, European Capital for South Asian Media
  project set up in 2002
• Joint initiative of MATV and Leicester City
  Councils Cultural Strategy Unit
• Funded by EMDA managed by EM Screen Commission,
  later EM Media
• Key areas of research in the project
• 1. To promote East Midlands as a hub for
  visiting productions,
• 2. To investigate reasons filmmakers use foreign
  locations, and
• 3. To consider potential benefits for
  organisations in the city and the region
• Report and recommendations launched in July 2003
  presently at the stage of implementation and
  further fundraising.

3
Aims of this paper / presentation

• Reflect on the findings of the Leicester Project
• Examining three key aspects
• 1. The regions diaspora itself and its media
  consumption,
• 2. the commercial and cultural phenomenon that
  is Bollywood
• 3. Potential impact of their engagement
• Connect the streams of thinking on diasporic
  media and cultures transnational cultural
  industries
• Extend the scope of these debates

4
Leicester and the East Midlands?

• Brief history of Leicester
• Key phases of migration into Leicester
• What is the East Midlands region
• Leicesters diasporas
• Leicesters successes multiculturalism,
  diversity.
• Diasporic media in Leicester consumption,
  production distribution

5
Asian diasporic media in the UK

• Key consumption indicators
• Origins of media production
• - Recycled content
• - Original content
• Television
• Radio
• Press
• New media

6
Conceptualizing Bollywood

• A problematic nomenclature
• Popular understandings
• Aspects of engagement with the Asian diaspora
• - the diaspora as consumers
• - the diaspora as a source of popular
  narratives
• - diaspora using Bollywood to negotiate
  identities
• - diasporas as producers of these texts

7
Commerce, Content and Context in Bollywood Cinema

• Outline of size impact
• Business practices
• Production and distribution networks
• Impact on content
• Recognition as an industry
• Changing scenarios in finance
• New technologies, new markets and new strategies
• Is this the panacea?

8
Bollywoods view of the foreignBy Leicester,
do you mean Leicester Square?

• Research background methods.
• Key findings
• Proliferation of fantasy narratives
• Demands of realistic narratives
• Going foreign as a practical necessity
• Facilitation
• Equipment
• Production finance
• Visa, immigration Customs

9
Reflections on the Leicester FILMPUR Project

• Linking with regional economies and regional
  cultural economies
• - problems prospects
• Linking with transnational cultural industries
• - problems prospects
• Recent developments on-going initiatives
• The road ahead

10
Conclusions

• Directions for further research
• Is the global and the local still an useful
  paradigm?
• Are cultural economies better understood in terms
  of flows?
• Changing perspectives in the study of cultural
  economies,
• Understanding new transnational cultures and
  cultural industries.