Kapil Dev says cricket, like cinema, is undergoing disruption

The changing technology that was allowing an increase in lower-budget productions without the effects and technology of bigger-budget ventures, was also creating a renewed understanding of the value of writing in films, actor Tamannaah Bhatia said.

“Today people realise the value of writers,” Bhatia said. “Whatever the video process of filming, if the writing is focused on, we’re likelier to get to a point where we create content that people might like, regardless of the production values.”

The Victorian government-funded festival, now in its 13th year, is one of a handful of film festivals around the world to make full use of streaming technology, having created its own downloadable app that allows free screening of 120-plus films, documentaries and short films.

Australia’s Indian diaspora is growing in importance. Census 2021 figures published in June showed India has now overtaken China and New Zealand to become the third-largest country of birth after Australia and England.

“The Indian diaspora may prove over the next two decades to be the most politically active of any migrant group in Australian history since the Irish,” Peter Varghese, a former head of the department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, wrote in a key government report published in 2018.

But festival director Mitu Bhowmick Lange said the market –particularly for movies – had always been strong, as evidenced by the fact that local commercial cinemas often screened Indian movies.

“The market has always been there,” Ms Bhowmick Lange said. “Indian films have always been very strong.”

The festival also aims to develop the skills of Australian filmmakers from the subcontinent. Four well-known Bollywood producers, Mr Khan, Rima Das, Imtiaz Ali and Onir (born Anirban Dhar), will come to Melbourne in September to work with local directors to produce four short films that will be shown as a feature at next year’s festival.

In addition to 83, the sports drama about the cricket World Cup victory, other movies showing during the festival include the thriller Dobaaraa and Ladies Only, a feminist portrait of modern urban women in India.

Dev alongside Bollywood superstar Abhishek Bachchan – the son of famed Bollywood actor and producer Amitabh Bachchan and actor and MP Jaya Bachchan – will on Saturday raise India’s flag at Melbourne’s Federation Square to celebrate the 75th anniversary of India’s independence from Britain.