Introduction: Star Switching Power in Networked Bollywood

Summary

It was a balmy April morning in Tampa Bay, Florida, as I sauntered along the promenade to attend the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry–International Indian Film Academy Awards (FICCI–IIFA) business forum hosted by the University of South Florida’s Muma College of Business. There was nervous energy and general anticipatory chaos in the conference room, where a panel on Bollywood’s global collaborations was about to start. As we were waiting for things to commence, I cornered Santiago Corrada, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Visit Tampa Bay and a host of this panel, for a conversation. He smiled at me and fidgeted with his hands as he produced brief responses to my questions about the event, which I pegged to a general American nonchalance towards Bollywood. It had been twenty minutes since the designated start time for the event, and the impatience was showing. People shuffled in their seats and paced in and out of the conference room. A sudden collective clamour in the room alerted me to the arrival of an important speaker. Bollywood star Anil Kapoor walked in with his usual swagger, and Corrada’s nonchalance vanished. Swiftly angling through the chairs, he zealously shook Kapoor’s hands. He was, it appeared, star-struck.

The panel comprised the who’s who of corporate India, the Indian film and entertainment industry, and its US collaborators. The panellists included the director of the global consultancy firm EY, the executive director of the Tampa Hillsborough Film and Digital Media Commission, the president of the Confederation of Indian Industry, the CEO of the Film & Television Producers Guild of India Limited, film producers, and, of course, Anil Kapoor. These business forums featured a range of topics from ‘opportunities in Indo-US commerce’ to ‘healthcare and technology partnerships’ anchored around the 2014 IIFA Awards, Bollywood’s Oscar-style award show celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema. The IIFA forums were a spectacular and particularly generative space of global flows where all major stakeholders in India’s industrial landscape and beyond were amply represented. The attendees included Indian and American diplomats, key figures from the Indian-American diaspora, as well as individuals from the Indian and US film and entertainment businesses.