Critical Research Sources -

1. (Article from http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/may/20/news.india)

-The move also opens the door for Indian directors to work in Hollywood.
-Reliance is making a major move in putting Hollywood and Bollywood together.
(A Marriage Between the Cultures)
-The key will be whether you can make Indian movies that sell abroad and at the same time sell foreign stars in India," said Komal Nahta, the editor of Mumbai trade paper the Film Street Journal.
-The Indian film industry puts out 1,000 movies a year but is only a £1bn business. Hollywood produces half that number of films but has 10 times the sales.
-The reason for the lack of commercial success is that traditional Bollywood studios are family-run affairs which rely more on pandering to star talent than scouting for good scripts or sticking to budgets.
-The new deal is a step change for Indian studios, whose biggest movies to date cost around $15m.
A Link Between Culture, Institutions & Language
-Reliance, which already has 160 cinemas in India, will open a further 220 across North America to promote its new films.
-There is little doubt that Reliance, which has until now kept a low profile, aims to become India's biggest media house.
Ambani's Reliance empire already controls India's second biggest mobile phone operator and the largest FM radio station.

It has plans to launch a satellite TV platform and is creating a new 20-channel TV network. In February the financier George Soros paid $100m for a 3% stake in the entertainment arm, valuing the company at $3bn.


2. (Extract from http://web.uni-marburg.de/religionswissenschaft/journal/)

Marburg Journal of Religion (Volume 9, no1, September 2004)
-Indian movies and cultural identity

-The great success of Indian cinema can be traced back to an affinity for opulent dancing scenes
-the rigid censorship: kisses on the mouth, explicit sexuality and nudity are taboo.
-Popular Indian movies reflect social conflicts between tradition and modernity furthermore they often include a strong utopian notion
-Evidently Hindu rituals play a central role within the cinematic presentation of conflicts.


3. (An Introduction to Film Studies, edited by Jill Nelmes)

An Introduction to Indian Cinema, Asha Kasbekar

-‘India became independent in 1947.’
-‘A revolutionary decade in the film industry where a combination of talented individuals came together which led to film critics refer to 1950’s as the ‘golden age’ of Hindi cinema’
-‘Enthusiasm for the new republic gave fresh impetus to film production in the country.’

4. (Article from the Times Online http://business.timesonline.co.uk)

Spielberg close to movie deal with India's Reliance
Times Online and Agencies

-A deal would give director Steven Spielberg, one of the three media moguls who formed DreamWorks in 1994, enough cash to finance his DreamWorks team's departure from Viacom’s Paramount Pictures later this year.

-According to The Wall Street Journal, Reliance ADA Group, based in Mumbai and controlled by billionaire industrialist Anil Ambani, would provide Mr Spielberg and the company with between $500 million (£256 million) and $600 million in equity.

5.1 (BBC News Entertainment http://news.bbc.co.uk)

Dreamworks joins India’s Reliance
By Rajesh Merhandani

-The film studio Dreamworks, co-founded by Steven Spielberg, has agreed a joint venture with one of India's biggest entertainment conglomerates.
-It is a story of Hollywood meets Bollywood in a $1.5bn (£0.85bn) deal.
-Dreamworks was bought by movie giant Paramount Pictures in 2006. Under that arrangement, hit films like Transformers were made.
Institutuions
-Director/Producer Mr Spielberg has overseen some of the biggest box office hits including ET, Schindler's List and Jaws.


5.2 DreamWorks info

-DreamWorks is a major American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films.


6. Reliance ADA Group info

-Companies like Reliance are looking to Hollywood to expand their portfolios and "create a new genre of crossover cinema" with talent from India and abroad


7. (Article from The Observer)

Steamy TV in India tests the limits of sex taboos
Gethin Chamberlain in Delhi, August 24 2008

-India ''a country where public discussion of sex remains taboo''
-''Until a few years ago even a kiss was banned in Indian films, and there was a commission of inquiry to decide whether kissing was part of Indian culture.'
India has a contradictory attitude to sex and religion as;
Bollywood is all gyrating hips and seductive dances, with the wet sari scenes that leave very little to the imagination a must for many directors; pictures of scantily clad women and smouldering men adorn the pages of the daily papers.