An Urban Awakening

Gujarati cinema is winning audiences and acclaim as it shifts from rural narratives to stories and settings around lives in the city. But limited resources and divided audiences pose a challenge

- Jumana Shah

A decade ago, when Raam Mori moved to Ahmedabad from a small village in Bhavnagar with the simple dream of writing for Gujarati serials, little did he know that not only would his calendar be packed with projects for three years in advance, but one of his films would also achieve national acclaim. In October 2024, Kutch Express, for which Mori wrote the dialogues, bagged three National Film Awards, including the best actress and costume design honours. Filmed in Kutch, the movie traces the journey of a woman who, betrayed by her husband, finds her voice in lippan-a traditional art form.

It's one of the many examples of how the Gujarati film industry has been in revival mode, culminating in six box-office hits since 2023 (see The Big Earners). While one of them - supernatural horror film Vash (2023)-was remade into the highly successful Hindi movie Shaitaan in 2024, there are others winning critical acclaim. For instance, Pan Nalin-directed Chhello Show, a coming-of-age drama about a film-obsessed kid that made its way to the Oscar shortlist in the Best International Feature Film category in 2023.

The game-changer came in 2012 with Kevi Rite Jaish (How Will I Leave). A drama, starring Divyang Thakkar and Veronica Gautam, it resonated with the quintessential Gujarati aspiration of chasing success in America. Until then, Gujarati films primarily catered to rural audiences even as the state had witnessed rapid urbanisation. "Kevi Rite Jaish alerted Gujarati creators about the potential of [tapping into] urban audiences, who till then were assumed to be Bollywood loyalists," notes Mori. With that came the birth of the 'urban Gujarati film industry'.

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