This week there is only one Bollywood topic worldwide: Karan Johars Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna Release on August 11th. All over, as we read on several news pages, cinema halls are sold out. Reallly worldwide?

German speaking countries don’t have any KANK release yet. The situation is something between rights, dubbing and business - three things, we freaks don’t want to talk about. We just want to see movies as soon as possible. KANK, a movie to reach a lot of interested people on the screen (Shahrukh is still the only bollywoodstar known by non-bollywood people), is not available. Some lucky ones are going to Amsterdam looking it with dutch subtitles - better not to understand detais than miss the whole release. Others as Maria (shes some Shahrukh girlie) have well planned her holidays to see KANK in New York right now. But the majority has no chance to see legally anything. And that’s not good at all, neither for bollywood developement generally nor especially for cinema success of indian movies in german speaking countries. If some movie is dubbed month later less people will see it. We the people buy dvds as soon as possible, and some incorrigible ones will look out for pirated dvds. That all is clear. But RapidEyeMovies, rightholder for germany, doesn’t manage to make a german subtitled version and doesn’t allow the original one to be shown.

Others as Ashraf, the guy who brought bollywood to germany for many years can’t afford rights for such popular movies.

So we, the german community, discuss if germany is - in filmmakers opinion - still some bollywood developing country with less worth for rightholders, only good to get some fast money. On the other hand, if we look on dvd sales, bollywood in germany is a great dvd business. Many dvd releases manage to climb the ladder of sales.

Does bollywood in cinema not sell in germany? And does this affect bollywoods future in germany? If we talk with babasko or marco, there are neither big audiences in vienna or zurich cinema halls, only some hundred guys ‘n girls visiting movies in original audio with english subtitles. This does not make it necessary to focus on cinema releases, as long as bollywood on dvds sales hundred thousend times per copy.

But is it possible to survive a long time with delayed releases? Or is it counterproductive for whole fan commmunity? We freaks awaits the dvds. But also we don’t want to wait month.

Thats how it looks like in germany with the major cinema release KANK in germany. Sad, but the truth. Germany was for a long time spoilt with dubbed cinema. So only dubbed cinema sells. What future brings, we’ll see. Neither community nor rightholders nor publishers earn more in this situation. The only one lucky with that will be pirated copy sellers.