StanaCard: India's Traveling Cinemas In Danger of Going Under

When American’s think of movies, our minds automatically go to Hollywood, and the American film industry. Surprisingly to many though, is the fact that India is actually the largest producer of film in the world each year, with its “Bollywood” productions leading the way in film output in the country. In America, we tend to take many things for granted; one of these things being the easy access to movie theaters across the country. In the U.S., most people don’t have to travel far to get to their local cinema, and even most rural towns have some type of movie theater nearby.
In India, this is not the case at all. Though India puts out the most films out of any county, the amount of movie theaters per capita is much smaller than that in the U.S. This has opened the market for touring cinemas or “talkies”, which are cinemas that travel around to rural Indian towns, allowing people to see the biggest movies of the year.

Credit: http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/17/6072197
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These tent talkies, or “tambu” as they are referred to in India, have been thriving for decades, but have recently come upon some hard times. As the rural towns began to get a hold of cable TV and pirated DVD’s, the attendance to the annual talkies has been severely lacking. The owner of one company, called Anup Talkies, explains that “People used to like touring cinemas a lot, but after these new modes of entertainment only about 10 percent of the people come here to watch films.”

Many of the companies have already shut down – out of about 50 that used to come to the Satara district just 10 years ago, only about seven or eight are still remaining. The talkies are important because they provide entertainment to women who rarely are able to leave the house, and they showcase not only the blockbusters, but also regional, local-language films that would otherwise not be distributed.

Many people would have to travel distances upwards of 50 miles just to see a movie without the traveling talkies, making it virtually impossible to see any films in theaters. Many people have started even more mobile cinemas, such as one farmer who shows films in an old truck which he pulls by tractor.

For any of you with friends or family in India , why not give them a call to chat about the latest films or to see if they have seen any traveling talkies lately? With StanaCard, you don’t always need an important reason to call home, as we are currently giving our customers who call India up to 40% free credit on each re-charge!