" Art, cinema and cultural exchange should be kept away": Filmmaker Om Raut on Trump's 100% tariff on movies produced outside the US

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], May 6 (ANI): Film director Om Raut shared his views on US President Donald Trump's recent announcement of imposing a 100 per cent tariff on films produced outside the United States.
In a conversation with ANI, he said Hindi films of Indian movies are not shown in all cinema screens in the US.
"I can talk mostly about Indian films, which run in some particular sectors. Hindi films or Indian films are shown in some small centres. And their collection, if we see a film like 'RRR', which has the most collection...now, such films run in a particular centre. And the centres are far from their homes. So people have to come together there. They have to drive some distance to go far, where they can watch the films. Like in big cities, like New York or LA, they are available in many places. But in many small cities, our films are shown in very few centres," added the director.
Raut continued, "And when the people of our Indian country, when they go there and watch the films, they have to pay a ticket rate. And I have seen mostly that the ticket rate of Hindi films is close to that of English films. But South Indian films are expensive. If you take the average ticket price, it is USD 10 to 12 or in some cities it is 15 dollars. But if we look at South Indian films, especially if we look at Telugu cinema, the tickets for Telugu films are sold for USD 20 to 25, sometimes more than that."

He shared that in such a scenario, if the tariff is increased, "then the rate of tickets will increase. When the ticket rates rise, the effect will automatically be on the footfall. You may be unable to watch the film for the second or third time. Maybe for watching the film for the first time, you will think twice. So here the ticket collection and the number of people who see the film will definitely be less, which is a very harmful thing."
He lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his vision and for highlighting India's creative strengths at a global platform through the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES)
"I feel that cinema or if we talk about any art, then art and cinema are such things with which we can bring the whole world together. Our Prime Minister...his approach was that all the collective efforts should be done. We had seen Make in India, now Create in India. So what he meant was that Indian culture and the world should come together and we should work together. So our approach, this has always been of Vasudeva Kutumbakam, in this we look at art differently, where there can be a cultural exchange between the two countries," he said.
"And with that, our knowledge about each other increases, our brotherhood towards each other increases, and similarly our society moves forward. I do not understand how we will do this. Tomorrow the film will be released on the OTT platform, some platform will definitely carry it. So if we see the film in cinemas, if we see the film in cinemas, the ticket rate is high. So when the film will be released on OTT, how will we do that? Because the subscription is the same. If you see an Indian film, or an American local film, or any film, the rate cannot be affected. So I cannot understand what it is that one is achieving..."
"The negative impact of this can be that today we are trying to minimise piracy. In such a situation, when the film tickets will be very expensive, the piracy can get a boost, which can prove very harmful. So how will we handle this? I feel that the American government should look at this in a very different way. And art and cinema, and the cultural exchange should be kept away from the tariff," he added.
US President Donald Trump has said he has directed the Department of Commerce and the US Trade Representative to immediately start the process of imposing a 100 per cent tariff on all movies coming into the US that are produced in other nations.
He said that the movie industry in the US is "dying" a very fast death and added that other nations were offering incentives to draw the American filmmakers and studios away from the US and termed it a "national threat."
In a post shared on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump stated, "The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood and many other areas within the U.S.A. are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands. WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN." (ANI)