Dear Piyush Goyal ji,
Your remarks at ‘Startup Mahakumbh’ about Indian startups needing introspection and real value-addition in the face of global competition—especially against China’s strides in EVs, semiconductors, and robotics—were deeply resonant. Your push to move beyond superficial ventures like “fancy ice cream & cookies” and focus on meaningful innovation is timely. I wish to highlight a sector with immense cultural and economic potential—Indian cinema—which, despite its legacy, is failing to innovate, compete globally, or harness its soft power potential like Korea or Japan.
Globally, cinema and OTT thrive on bold storytelling and technological disruption. Films like ‘Boyhood’ (shot over 12 years), ‘1917’ (single-take illusion), and ‘Parasite’ (social commentary), or Netflix’s ‘Adolescence’ (a raw, real-time dive into teenage chaos shot in one take), showcase how innovation drives cultural influence.
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Today, K-entertainment contributes over $12 billion to Korea’s economy, while Japan’s anime industry exceeds $20 billion in revenue. Hollywood dominates through Netflix’s $31 billion content budget, making it a global content empire. Meanwhile, Indian cinema remains stagnant—copying formats without mastering their essence. We are the world’s second-largest film producer, yet ironically, most of our content ends up being sold to American platforms like Netflix and Amazon. It’s the East India Company syndrome all over again—we create the raw material, but others own and profit from our stories.
The industry’s decay is evident. Studios are shutting down; producers flee to real estate. Visionary filmmakers struggle to survive, while the system promotes non-actors better suited to making Instagram reels or dancing in weddings than meaningful cinema. Rooted, Indic stories are missing. Bollywood, once a soft power beacon, is now “flower power”—style without substance.
The viewer experience is equally dismal: outdated multiplex screens, exorbitant ticket and food prices, and theatres resembling food courts. Cinema, once a middle-class joy, is now an unaffordable luxury with diminishing returns.
I speak from experience. ‘The Kashmir Files—a non-starrer, risky narrative—broke Bollywood’s formulaic mould but came at a personal cost: fatwas, security threats, relentless backlash and character assassination. If truth invites such hostility, how can we expect innovation?
The industry needs government support – funding, incentives, and platforms – to nurture bold storytellers, not just star-driven fluff. Indic cinema can be the biggest startup of India, with potential to generate jobs, export cultural capital, and build global influence just as Korea’s entertainment industry has done.
Just as startups must prioritise real value, Bollywood must shift from elite appeasement to global relevance. Cinema can be an economic and cultural powerhouse, India’s leading soft power but only with introspection and disruptive innovation.
I urge your intervention to empower filmmakers who dare to dream—help Indian cinema reclaim its place as a global leader, not a copycat.
Sincerely,
Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri
Indic Filmmaker
