New Zealand’s Love Of Spectacular Indian Cinema

These days, a quick internet search yields a dizzying assortment of international movie titles that can be seen in New Zealand; these include Hindi, Mandarin, Korean, Filipino, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam, among other languages.


The owner of Forum Films, an Indian distribution company, Pritesh Raniga, identifies two reasons for this growing practice.

Nevertheless, he persisted, using demographic information, statistics on enrolment in schools, and pictures of Auckland’s Diwali celebrations to influence movie theatre owners in New Zealand.

“It was hard to convince them, but eventually things moved forward, and here we are,” he continues.

Raniga’s debut picture, which he distributed in New Zealand in 2008, ended up becoming the highest-grossing Indian film of that year.

These days, he distributes films primarily from Bollywood and Punjabi studios throughout Australia, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea, in addition to New Zealand.

The film distribution industry, in his opinion, is both thrilling and difficult.

Raniga thinks that his choice to locate his business in Auckland and his engagement with New Zealand local communities are the main reasons for his success.

In addition, his Blockhouse Bay agency has distribution agreements with major Indian Bollywood production companies, including Zed Studios and Yashraj Films.

For almost a decade, Deepu Thoppil, the proprietor of Reelstar Entertainment, has been actively engaged in the distribution of films, primarily in the South Indian language.

He does concede, though, that money and viewership have been rising year over year.

Approximately 240,000 people of Indian heritage reside in New Zealand, according to the most recent population statistics from the 2018 census.

The remaining population is made up of persons of Indian descent, with the remaining 80,000 being non-resident Indians who nevertheless hold Indian citizenship.

The income that Indian films bring in in New Zealand has significantly increased in recent years, according to data from media analytics firm Comscore.

128 Indian film titles were released in the United States in 2023, bringing in more than $9.8 million in revenue.

While the nation was getting over the COVID-19 pandemic, 168 Indian film titles were released in 2022, bringing in $6.5 million.

South Indian-language films took the top slots in 2022 income numbers, but Bollywood topped those figures in 2023.

Jawan, Animal, and Pathaan are three noteworthy successful Indian releases in 2023; Pathaan is the highest-grossing title, earning $1.37 million.

$14.3 million was made in 2023 by films in various Asian languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino.

According to an Event Cinemas representative, the company screened more than 100 Indian films in 2023 in the languages of Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, and Punjabi.