/> Having just gathered heaps of praise at the Toronto Film Festival for his latest English –language feature film Before The Rains and his short film on AIDs Prarambh in Kannada, cinematographer-director Santosh Sivan now heads for Japan to be honoured by the Japanese Society Of Cinematographers on 28 September at Tokyo and on 30 September at Osaka.

"I really can't tell which honour I enjoy more....to be praised for my direction of cinematography," says Sivan shyly. "But they're screening two of my most contrasting works as a cinematographer, Mani Ratnam's Dil Se and my own directorial venture Navarasa with Japanese subtitles... can you believe it."

Going by the massive ovation that Santosh's Before The Rains and Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear have received at Toronto, is the West more accepting of a new kind of 'Bollywood' removed from the song-and-dance tradition,

Santosh disagrees. "Out west the so-called Bollywood formula has never been the sole trademark for Indian cinema.

Thanks to the films of Satyajit Ray and other masters from India who made an impac, there have always been different kinds of Indian cinema making an impact in the West and 'Bollywood' has never been synonymous with Indian cinema.

My two films at Toronto Before the Rains and Prarambha were not only very different from the Bollywood formula but also different from one another and also in different languages, English and Kannada.

Foreign audiences don't equate Hindi formula films with Indian cinema But yes, they do like big Bollywood stars at the film festivals, just like they like their counterparts from Hollywood to walk the red carpet. Stars make good television visuals."