Do discover new friends… and countries. Stay tuned.

Babasko originally wrote:

Hah. I´ve just re-read my posts about the 1st PEIBBM last March and it all came back. How super-duper fun it was. Even back then we were talking about a repeat-performance. And that’s why today I´m bahut khuchi to announce the 2nd Pan-European/International Bollywood Blogger Meeting.

Get ready to join the fun from March 7th to March 9th 2008 and this time in Munich!

The preliminary rough schedule, conceived by Michael, Kaddele, Beth, Marco, Maini, Maria, me and a whole lot of other helping spirits shows that the program will be pretty similar to last year:

We meet on Friday March 7th, this time already during the afternoon, hang out, blog, chat, do silly stuff, eat, drink. One idea is to catch a Bollywood flick in a Munich cinema (which might be a problem since Munich isn´t as lucky as Vienna and we still have to convince one of the local distributors of playing an Indian film. But no fear, we still have some aces up our kurta sleeves..) in the evening.

The “Big Day” like last year will be Saturday March 8th. Matlab typical Bavarian “Weisswurst” breakfast, the Liveblogging during the afternoon and in the evening we will start with the award ceremony of the 5th Central European Bollywood Awards (voting will start early February) and lead right into an open end paaaaarty.

Sunday will see another joint breakfast and then its already time to leave for home.

We also have a lot (and I mean a whole lot) of surprises in store. So this year is going to be even bigger and better than the last. Just keep watching this space for updates.

We would love to have you all there. And if you make it to Munich we will, like last year, make sure to find you a cheap place to stay. And you will have a filmitastic time! Kasam se!

Would be fun to see any international guests there. You’re all welcome.

Don´t think that only because the last update concerning the First Pan-European/International Bollywoodbloggers Meeting in Vienna is from a week ago, there was no planning work going on behind the scenes.

So here is the first draft of the schedule for Saturday March 10th 2007.

Remember: First rule of the 1st PEIBBM. It´s all about having fun. So timetables are approximate values only!

Since some of you will arrive in Vienna on Saturday morning I will have an open house with lots of coffee for those poor red-eye-flight gals like Maini and whoever wants to join. Around noon the idea is to grab some lunch and since its so nice there we´ll head to the Naschmarkt.

At 14.00 we´ll get into serious business and meet to watch Bommarillo. The place we´ll be doing that has WLAN so expect some heavy live-blogging.

Next point on the agenda is 18.00 where we´ll meet (at an until now undisclosed) Indian restaurant and at 20.00 we´ll have some cool stuff coming up (again undisclosed as of now *wavesatmarco*) So hang in there. It is only a few days until I will be able to come up with more details.
PS: Participants get in shape. There might be press coverage too….

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.

Thats what i’ve seen right now, reviewed in my German (main) blog.

So why the need for another blog? Cause this world doesn’t speak as much german as i speak ist. Of course, my english isn’t really good, but enough for conversation - and that is what bollywoodbloggers.com is made for.

There are many blogs, especially in english. Some of them written by different people, most or all of hindustan origin. But this bollywoodbloggers-world is far more than that. There are polish people blogging daily or some from netherlands. There are french ones and spanish. Some good blogs (written by people i will call friends) are american origin. There are austian ones and russian pages. But - ever seen any place with different people from different countries writing about their connecting hobby bollywood? I’ve not seen any place.

Thats why i’ve founded this place, bollywoodbloggers.com. Written in English and other world languages this place should connect all this different people from different countries with the same hobby indian cinema.

Hopefully it will work - therefor i need your help. Write me at michael (at) bollywoodblog.de for making you some writer to this blog.

Yours sincerely
Michael

a new bollywood blog experience…