Urban Gujarati movie is a trend here to stay. Regional Gujarati cinema holds a special place in audiences’ hearts. And starting from 1932 with the release of the first Gujarati movie Narshinh Mehta to the latest release of Hellaro and then after, Gujarati cinema has seen many ups and downs. There were many trends visible in mainline Gujarati cinema starting from mythological stories, socially motivated screenplays and then to rural cultural-based movies that we have seen till the late 90s and in early 2000s. One such trend that is gaining faster momentum is the Urban Gujarati movie.

In the past Gujarati Cinema has produced some of the best classic Gujarati movies but as an industry, Gujarati cinema failed to modify with time. It works on repetitive stories, the same old movie genres, outdated screenplays and no dialogue improvisation. But the silver line in the cloud is that Dhollywood has changed drastically in the last 15 years or so and the movies produced recently are no lesser than the mainline Hindi cinema. Urban Gujarati movie trend started with the movie Kevi Rite Jaish directed by Abhishek Jain has forced the industry to make U-Turn when it comes to storytelling and audience targeting. This new trend of Urban Gujarati film production is widely due to the acceptance of what viewers wants to see and the creativity that modern-day directors can bring with the storytelling. Abhishek Jain can no doubt considered as a pioneer of this movie making trend.

And thanks to this there are more and more people interested to connect with Urban Gujarati Film Industry not only from the acting or direction department but from others like DOP, Marketing & Communication, Urban Gujarati Film Distribution, Assistant Production, Music Direction, Lyrics, Song Writers, Background Singers and Movie Financing as well. It is wonderful to see how the increasing number of Urban Gujarati films made every year and doing their part of successful business competing with mainline Hindi cinema. Some of the Urban Gujarati movie actors like Siddharth Randeria, Malhar Thaker, Pratik Gandhi, Mitra Gadhvi, Yash Soni, Shraddha Dangar, Kinjal Rajpriya, Janki Bodiwala are also becoming the new celebrities amongst the metro population.

Gujarati film industries’ transformation from cultural cult to urban Gujarati film industry is mainly because of people involved like producers, directors and scriptwriters are exploring new themes to entertain people. Till the first decade of twenty-first century, most of the Gujarati films are primarily made targeting rural class or audience, and even many times they find it difficult to get a screen in multiplexes in tier I cities. But with the beginning of the new age Gujarati Urban class movies comes to fresh concepts, contemporary stories, better production facilities and urban centric music as well. Some of the films have also ventured into international shooting destinations as well for Urban Gujarati movies. Technically we can say that the Urban Gujarati movie segment is still into his experimental stage and people are not letting behind trying new things to make the audience count.

Box Office Collection of Urban Gujarati Movies: For any Gujarati movie produced in last decade have a production budget of overall Rs. 1.5 to 2 crore. And in that case, if a film made about 7 to 8 crore then it is considered to be a hit movie. Where in most of the Urban Gujarati movies are been able to catch that mark easily based on the higher ticket cost in multiplexes compare to a single screen in the semi-urban and rural locations. The biggest Urban Gujarati movie Chello Divas which has collected around 20 crores from the box office has created a benchmark for the segment in Gujarat so far. Other commercially successful movies from the urban segment are Shu Thayu?, Gujjubhai The Great, Gujjubhai Most Wanted, Sharto Lagu, Bey Yaar and Karshandas Pay & Use.

Gujarat Government Policies For Urban Gujarati Movies: Until now the government’s boost to this industry was very minute and the total financial aid was up to Rs. 5 Lakh only to movie producers. However, the new policy of 2016 declared by CM Shri Vijay Rupani and Deputy CM Shri Nitin Patel includes higher slabs of subsidies to Gujarati movies. These slabs are divided into 4 categories; A, B, C, D which are mainly the overall points secured by the movie out of 100. For category A which is for 80 to 100 points movie, the grant is Rs. 50 Lakh, for category scoring 61 to 80 points, the grant is Rs. 25 Lakh, while C category has a benchmark of 51 to 60 points and grant of Rs. 10 Lakh while D category has point table between 51 to 60 and subsidy of Rs. 5 Lakh. The current policies declared by the Government of Gujarat were heartily welcomed by the Urban Gujarati film industry as it can be a big boost to the overall budget of the film as well as a motivational factor to do well. In addition to this the amendment made by the Government of Gujarat in 2019 increases the upper limit of subsidy for film production from 50 Lakh to 75 Lakh and also add a new slab of Rs. 5 Lakh for lower scale movies.

Apart from this, there is a special provision of Rs. 5 Crore award for Gujarati films that receive National Award or International acclaims like Oscar, Cannes, Berlin Film Festival, France Film Festival etc. These policies of the Government is boosting the morale of producers and directors to venture into the Gujarati Film Industry.