Telugu superstar Nagarjuna Akkineni headlined a session on the rise and rise of Pan-India filmmaking at the World Audio Visual & Entertainment Summit (WAVES) in BKC, Mumbai on Friday (May 2). He was joined in the panel by veteran Anupam Kher, Tamil actor Karthi and actor-politician Kushboo Sundar.
Anatomising the success of recent Pan-India juggernauts like Pushpa, Baahubali and KGF — all big-budget productions originating from the South — Nagarjuna argued that such films worked because audiences in India love larger-than-life heroes.
He pointed out that both the Pushpa films made more money in the North than in Telugu centres. “We have seen similar stories in Telugu before, like Pushpa, which has larger-than-life heroes. Whereas in the North — in Bihar, UP, and Punjab — they wanted to see their heroes like Pushpa Raj, Yash in KGF or Baahubali. For Indian people and culture, just living day to day is difficult, and when they want to overcome the stress by watching films, they want to see magic on screen,” Nagarjuna said.
Actors Nagarjuna, left, and Kushboo Sundar during a session ‘Pan-Indian Cinema: Myth or Momentum?’ at the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025, in Mumbai, Friday, May 2, 2025.
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SHASHANK PARADE
The trailer for Allu Arjun-starrer Pushpa 2: The Rule was launched in Patna, Bihar, while Rocky bhai — the protagonist played by Yash in the megahit Kannada franchise KGF — became a pop-cultural phenomenon across the North. These films exude a rooted, rustic heroism that stands apart from Hollywood gloss, yet manage to transport viewers to a fantasy world.
“Allu Arjun was a star in the North for ten years before Pushpa happened. It wasn’t an overnight success,” Karthi said.
Pan-Indian films are offering big-screen escapism without moving away from their native roots, observed Nagarjuna. “That’s what the larger-than-life stories are doing, without losing the fundamentals of Indian storytelling. They are not going away from that, which is why they have been successful. Rajamouli shot Baahubali, frame to frame, thinking it was a Telugu film. He was very proud of his roots and language, and he shot it like a Telugu film, and people loved it across the world! If you are rooted to your storytelling, it will resonate,” Nagarjuna said.
Anupam Kher held forth on the universality of compelling storytelling. “Ingrid Bergman, the famous Swedish actress, said it amazingly,” Kher commented. “She said that any film, any story, which is from the heart will touch the audience, not the craft. Craft never touches the audience but the truth.”
In this image released by PIB on May 2, 2025, Bollywood actor Anupam Kher speaks during a session ‘Pan-Indian Cinema: Myth or Momentum?’ at the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025, in Mumbai.
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Kher gave the example of James Cameron’s Titanic and how Hollywood attempted to turn it into a formula, but failed. “He (Cameron) made a love story set against a disaster. So American producers thought, let’s make another love story set against a bigger disaster. So they made Pearl Harbour. But that film became a disaster in itself.”
Nagarjuna stressed that mass filmmaking in India operates within its own logic. “You might say, ‘A guy raises his fist and 20 people fall, it looks abnormal!’ But if you like Marvel or DC films, Superman does the same thing, but they give the logic of them having ‘super powers’. But we don’t need those special powers! The common man, the ticket-paying audience, including me, wants to watch my heroes larger than life.”
Published – May 02, 2025 04:29 pm IST
