Hindi cinema joins race to cross LoC

MUMBAI: Hindi cinema has just entered a new Race. One, where the Goal is to cross the border and get into the final frontier of the Pakistani film market.

A feat, where UTV���s distribution arm has managed a hat-trick . Last November, UTV released its home production Goal in Pakistan on the day it released in India and collected a cool Rs 2 crore on its 12 prints.

Recently the company released Race with 15 prints and a few cuts, and on Friday they released Aamir Khan Productions��� Tare Zameen Par (TZP). While both Goal and Race made it to Pakistan as they were considered foreign films, TZP released as a regular Indian film.

For the past many years, Pakistan has been India���s largest piracy market and Indian producers have lost crores in sales. In many ways, it is the last frontier for Indian cinema. It is a market which the industry estimates to be 15% more than the Bombay circuit (Hindi cinema���s largest), and Satish Anand, who is distributing Race in Pakistan, is convinced the movie has all the potential ingredients to be a blockbuster.

���Race is in many ways a true test to see the commercial potential of Hindi films,��� says the CEO of Everready Pictures, speaking to ET from Lahore. He is all praise for his government and their open-minded attitude. Due to Anand picking up physical prints, the movie reached some theatres in Pakistan only on Saturday (March 22).

���So far, the weekend collections are around $75,000, but we expect the coming weekend to do much better,��� said a spokesperson from UTV. All other things being equal (read piracy market), Race will collect a cool Rs 3 crore, which is a blockbuster by Pakistan standards. Pakistani films like Choodiyan and Majajan have collected the same.

Anand knows that to ensure leveraging the day and date release, he must take steps to curb the threat of piracy, since unlike local films, which are protected by the government from piracy, it is not the case with foreign films. Which is why, Anand has been talking to cable associations and also trying to rope in government support to tackle piracy.