Cinema based on events that hogged newspaper headlines is a trend fast catching on in Bollywood.

The first film this year, "Amu", was based on the 1984 Sikh riots. Next month, writer Anurag Kashyap (whose first reality-based film "Panch" remains in the cans) turns director with "Black Friday", a docu-like feature film focusing on the series of bomb blasts that rocked Mumbai on March 12, 1993.

Last week's bi-lingual "Des Hoya Pardes" also dwelt into the aftermath of the Sikh riots. Produced by singer Gurdas Maan, the film in Punjabi and English depicts the flight from India of Sikhs who were wrongly accused of anti-national activities after the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi.

According to Divya Dutta who stars in "Des Hoya Pardes", "The film is hard-hitting and yet warm and sensitive. We can't have messages being hammered into the audiences".

Like "Amu", "Black Friday" appears both as a book and a film, thereby consolidating the close relationship between the two creative media and also extending the parameters of realism on screen.

Interestingly most of these reality-based films are being made by debutant directors who obviously hope to compensate for lack of resources and star power by cashing in on sensational headlines.

Debutant Shariq Minhaz's "Chand Bujh Gaya" is about the carnage on the train in Godhra and the ensuing sectarian riots in Gujarat. It even features an actor who's a dead-ringer for Narendra Modi!

Reality-based films are in fact on the rise. A young filmmaker named Prabhakar Shukla is now busy making a film on the bizarre case of the army 'widow' Gudiya who remarried another soldier... only to have her first soldier-husband descend alive in her life.

Divya Dutta who plays the title role in "Gudiya" says reality films are here to stay. "They're the trend everywhere. I don't see why Hindi cinema should shy away from them. In Hollywood even big commercial films like 'Erin Brockovich' and 'A Beautiful Mind' are based on real issues. Why not here? Perhaps we need to escape from escapism now."

Several filmmakers are planning to do just that. One enterprising filmmaker has even announced a film based on Preeti Jain's rape accusations against director Madhur Bhandarkar.

Bhandarkar's new film "Page 3" has many characters modelled on real-life socialites and journalists. Even Subhash Ghai's "Kisna" appears to be inspired by a real-life incident, albeit in the remote past.