!!~Peter Gaya kaamse~!! - Page 8

Art house films are no longer meant only for a niche audience, as they are fast turning into money-churners. PT does a cash count.

small is the new big: A still from the film Luck By Chance

If you were to take a closer look at the films that made a mark at the BO of late - A Wednesday, Aamir, Mithya, Dev. D, Bheja Fry, Dasvidaniya, Rock On!!, Luck By Chance, Billu and Shaurya - you'd see some shining examples of art house cinema. Today the boundary lines between art house and mainstream Bollywood cinema is blurring. So much so, that leading faces from Bollywood have trekked over and become an indelible part of art house films. And yes, the box-office returns of these films are enough to make the filmmakers/production companies laugh their way to the banks.

Abhay Deol, Gul Panag, Irrfan Khan, Neha Dhupia, Rajat Kapoor, Rahul Bose, Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shorey, Neetu Chandra, Konkona Sen Sharma and Farhan Akhtar are some of the faces that are lighting up and making a difference to 'reality' films. Farhan made his acting debut in the small film Rock On!!, setting the cash counters ringing and got loads of critical acclaim for Luck By Chance, his recent flick. Vinay Pathak made a successful second coming in films thanks to Mithya and Dasvidaniya. Irrfan's small screen career led him to art house films, and later Life... In A Metro, The Namesake and this year's Billu. Rajeev Khandelwal, television's poster boy, chose to make his debut on 35 mm in the off-beat Aamir winning accolades galore. Konkona, a typical art house cinema darling, has been straddling commercial cinema as well along with her off-beat, realistic films. Glam girl Neetu Chandra, who'd made her debut opposite Akshay Kumar in the laugh riot Garam Masala, has made the switch to meaningful films from Traffic Signal to Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!.

The youngest Deol on the B-town block, Abhay Deol, is already being hailed as the face of art house cinema, having done films like Socha Na Tha, Manorama Six Feet Under, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! and the most recent Dev. D. Neha Dhupia who's done hardcore commercial films before has also made a convincing balancing job with meaningful films like Mithya and Dasvidaniya, Bipasha Basu is doing her first ever art house film Pankh.

"It's a good trend that we are trying out different subjects. Thankfully art house films are selling today," feels actor Shilpa Shetty. Agrees actor Sonu Sood, "These days every form of cinema and artiste have their own audience. People are open to experimentation now."

Many industry people believe that art house films are recovering money and doing well because of multiplexes. "There was always a niche audience for small, art house films, but I think the multiplexes have done real good to us," says actor-director Rajat Kapoor.

In the end, nothing sells more than success. If art house cinema has its takers then filmmakers will feel like making more such films.