Indian cinema, initiated by Dadasaheb Phalke, turned 107 this year. The scope of cinema has widely evolved over the years. Times are changing and now regional cinemas are giving a tough competition to the mainstream movies. The contribution of the regional movies in the century-long journey of Indian cinema surely needs to be acknowledged.

Gujrati Cinema is one of the major film industries in India which is casually known as Dhollywood or Gollywood. Even though the first Gujarati film was released in 1932, it took nearly 87 years for the industry to receive a national award for a film. All the regional cinemas, including Gujrati, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, and many others are providing content based films in the past few years and the response from the audience is generous.

Gujarati actress Deeksha Joshi who recently received the best actress award for her film 'Dhunki', shares, `Even though the content being produced was amazing, the regional cinemas were less appreciated a few years ago. Comparatively, today the regional cinema is directly competing with the Hindi film industry.`

Adding to it further, `Gujarati Cinema and most importantly every regional cinema has always faced economic difficulties. To give out a good product, you need finance, and many investors were sceptical about investing their money here. Today, things have changed, even the Gujarati films are in the race of National awards. It is good to see that regional cinema is being recognized in the national market. I thank the Gujarati industry for giving me such a great platform to explore myself as an actor and would love to explore Hindi and other cinemas as well.`

The regional cinema is an important pillar of the Indian Cinema that takes our culture, language, and diversity at a global level through the process of film making. It is really good to see the regional industries growing and establishing itself deservedly in the world of Indian cinema.