Hindus urge world filmmakers to respect their faith

Rajan Zed pointed out that Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought. He urged world filmmakers not to trivialise Hinduism and other religions of India.

CJ: Correspondent

Tue, Apr 28, 2009 15:33:55 IST

Views:
491
Comments:
0

Rate:

5.0 / 1 votes

Religious News India :

INTERNATIONAL FILMMAKERS are rushing to India with various projects making Hindus concerned about the depiction of their ancient religion on world cinema screens.

Acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada, United States of America, said, that Hindus and people of India welcomed world filmmakers to make India their next film project destination but taking Hinduism and other religions of India seriously and respectfully and not reimagining their concepts and symbols just for mercantile greed.

Various British projects reportedly in pipeline include ambitious “Indian Summer” of Working Title, producer Leslee Udwin’s “West is West”, producer Graham Broadbent’s “These Foolish Things”, a detective series and a film about a crazed elephant by David Thompson of Origin Pictures, Gurinder Chadha’s two new projects, etc. Various Australian ventures reportedly include "The Waiting City" by Claire McCarthy; "Bollywood Down Under"; “Family Unit”; documentary “Bollywood Bazaar”; producer Bill Bennett’s thriller; John Winter’s two India-centric films; projects by Anupam Sharma, Jim McElroy and David Wood; etc. Hollywood recently co-produced Bollywood films like "Chandni Chowk To China" and "Saawariya". Los Angeles based PCB Productions reportedly is looking at mobile gaming to supplement major Bollywood releases for Western audience.

Reasons cited for this sudden passion for India are: Slumdog effect, globalisation, Bollywood’s growing technical sophistication and resources, cost-effectiveness, exoticism, irresistible locations, exploding global market for India-centric films, etc.

Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, said that cinema had always been interested in God but had not done a very good job in the depiction of religion and spirituality in general. Filmmakers should be more sensitive while handling faith related subjects, as cinema being very powerful medium, could create stereotypes in the minds of some audiences and sometimes it resulted in pillaging serious spiritual doctrines and revered symbols thus hurting the devotees.

Rajan Zed pointed out that Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken lightly. He urged world filmmakers not to trivialise Hinduism and other religions of India. If asked, he or other Hindu scholars would gladly help filmmakers regarding resources they needed for their study and research, he added.

Zed stressed that Hindus were for free speech as much as anybody else if not more. Hindu tradition encouraged peaceful debates, won on their intellectual merit. But faith was something sacred and attempts at belittling it or reformulating it for other agendas pained the devotees.

E-mail |

Print | Post comment

Photos on World

more...