Aishwarya Rai: Barriers between north and south have gone down

Responding to the debate on north vs south films recently, Aishwarya Rai said that it is an “amazing time” for Indian cinema as the audience wants to see films “from every part”. The actor also said that the language barriers between film industries were now being broken and films from everywhere were being seen by everyone now.

Aishwarya made the comments at a promotional event for her upcoming Mani Ratnam film Ponniyin Selvan: I in Delhi.

“It’s an amazing time right now, where we need to break away from the typical way of looking at artists and cinema. I think it’s a great time right now, where all these barriers have gone down. People know our cinema nationally. In fact, they are wanting to see the cinema from every part,” Aishwarya was quoted as saying in a Pinkvilla report.

The actor added, “I think this is finally the perfect time where it has become accessible nationally through so many platforms. Everybody can view cinema for what it is, across India. So, I think we need to kind of break away from this conventional way of thinking and help our viewers, our audiences, and our readers also to not slide into that typical way of viewing. Art has always been there, found the audience, and has been appreciated; so, have the artists. But avenues were limited. Today is a great time when it has become accessible to everybody. And proof of the pudding is in the eating, right? It is so evident that people are embracing and lapping up cinema from across the country.”

Recently, South Indian films like Pushpa: The Rise, RRR and KGF 2 have performed better than Hindi movies pan-India. On the other hand, star-wagon Hindi films like Laal Singh Chaddha and Raksha Bandhan, on the other hand, couldn’t perform commercially.

Aishwarya, who made her acting debut in 1997 with Mani Ratnam's Iruvar, is making her comeback to Tamil films with her upcoming period drama, Ponniyin Selvan: I. The film, based on Kalki Krishnamurthy's Tamil novel of the same name, also stars Jayam Ravi, Vikram, Karthi, Trisha Krishnan and Sobhita Dhulipala. The AR Rahman musical is all set to be released in theatres on September 30 in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada.