Mani Ratnam says Hindi cinema shouldn’t be referred to as Bollywood: ‘people will stop identifying…’

Filmmaker Mani Ratnam, who is gearing up for the release of ‘Ponniyin Selvan 2’, attended the second edition of CII Dakshin Media and Entertainment Summit in Chennai and talked about south Indian films' seminal influence on world cinema.

During the panel discussion, Mani Ratnam said that if the Hindi film industry stops referring to itself as Bollywood, then people will stop identifying Indian cinema as Bollywood.

National Award-winning filmmaker Vetrimaaran agreed with Mr. Ratnam and said, ‘I’m not a fan of the ‘woods’. Like Bollywood, Kollywood. We need to see it as Indian cinema on the whole.

At the event, he also emphasized the importance of telling more rooted stories to be accepted universally.

Mani Ratnam was one of the members of the panel that discussed South Indian cinema’s impact on a global scale after the success of movies such as ‘RRR’, ‘Pushpa: The Rise’, ‘Kantara’ and ‘KGF: Chapter 2’.

Filmmakers Vetrimaaran, Basil Joseph and actor-director Rishab Shetty were other members of the panel.

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