Aamir Khan says illegal piracy has helped new audiences find his Bollywood films across Asia

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

One of Bollywood's biggest stars says people illegally downloading his films helped grow his audience internationally, while technology is helping fans in India find new ways to watch his movies.
Aamir Khan has produced, directed and acted in some of Bollywood's biggest films including 3 Idiots, Lagaan, PK and Dangal.
Khan is in Australia as the guest of honour for the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, which will feature a major retrospective of his work as well as featuring his latest film, Sitaare Zameen Par.
While audiences have traditionally watched his work on big screens, he told ABC's The World new audiences had found his films on smaller screens.
He said his film 3 Idiots "went viral all over the place" thanks to people illegally downloading it.
"My audience grew a lot in the east in countries like China, Singapore, and Japan, Korea," Khan said.
"It happened, quite honestly, thanks to piracy.
Despite international audiences growing, he became increasingly concerned about the challenges Indian audiences faced accessing his work.
He said there were roughly 9,000 cinemas for India's population of 1.4 billion people.
In comparison, there are about 35,000 in the United States and 90,000 in China.
"Of these 9,000 [Indian cinemas] around half service the south languages, so for a Hindi film, you have roughly 4,000-5,000 screens available, too small a number," he said.
While initially believing building more brick and mortar theatres was the answer, he has since turned to the internet and YouTube.
His latest film Sitaare Zameen Par (Stars on Earth) has been released on YouTube at a cost of 100 rupees ($2) per view.
Films from his back catalogue are also expected to become available.
He said increasing internet access in India and the growing number of electronic payments inspired the idea.
More than 419 million people use the platform in India, making it YouTube's biggest audience in the world.
Industry estimates suggest that some 10-12 million people in India have a Netflix subscription.
"As a creative person, I want my film to be able to reach everyone across the country in India," he said.
"Now is the time finally where my film can reach a large audience and I think that really helps cinema on the whole."
Indian cinema expert at London Metropolitan University, Sunny Singh, told the ABC the move could help democratise Bollywood for domestic audiences.
She said ticket costs were increasing and theatres were closing in small Indian cities and that some cinemas had become vandalised for showing films deemed to be controversial.
"This could be the silver bullet that shifts things … you're basically widening the demographic for multiple reasons — economic, social [and] safety," Professor Singh said.
"If you get a pay-per-view … you're watching it at home, you're watching it in ways where you can have family around, you can also work with issues around safety and security.
"Lots of parts of India are not conducive spaces for women in movie theatres, especially if it is past certain times.
"It's a rather unprecedented move, I can't say it's a smart move, but it's a very interesting move and I'm very curious to know how it pans out."
Global cinemas expert at Queen Mary University of London, Ashvin Devasundaram, agreed.
Dr Devasundaram said given Khan's stature in the industry, it could set a "precedent" for Bollywood and independent filmmakers alike.
However, he cautioned that the Indian government, which approves all films for circulation, would not hesitate to attempt to force YouTube to remove content that it viewed as being contentious.
"There are films that have been more politically interrogative that the government has actively tried to intervene and get YouTube to remove, including trailers, so YouTube is also susceptible to these dictates of censorship," Dr Devasundaram said.
YouTube blocked viewers in India from accessing an ABC Four Corners investigation into the Indian state last year.
The investigation accused the Indian state of threatening Australia's national security.
YouTube said the video was restricted following a valid legal request but the nature of the order was "confidential".