with a dramatic improvement in quality in recent years south indian films are more rooted to our culture have a deeper emotional content and connect well with the indian ethos and competition from them has triggered a race for both content and quality in bollywoodonce the indian film industry converges it will knock hollywood off its pedestal predicts author columnist screenwriter tv personality and motivational speaker anand neelakantan the writer of the official prequel of the baahubali serieshe was engaged in a conversation by a news agency to explain the recent resurgence of southern films on a panindia scalethough baahubali was a trendsetter it was the advent of ott platforms that broke language barriers now a huge section of viewers are familiar with films and shows from other languages viewers watch korean shows turkish serials or spanish films in the comfort of their drawing rooms so it is no surprise that indian content from various languages finds viewers breaking the language barriernoting that this is just the beginning neelakantan said competition from the south indian film industry will trigger a race for quality and content in bollywood toohe said the language barriers will break down and we will have truly panindian superstars and actors so far we tend to address hindi actors as national actors and others as just regional superstars despite malayalam bengali or tamil bagging most of the national awards in most departments of films since inceptionneelakantan emphasises that yesudas mohanlal mammotty kamal haasan ilaiyaraaja sp balasubramanian spb mani ratnam k balachander vetrimaaran sowcar janaki or ks chitra with a shelffull of national awards were addressed as just south indian artistes while those from bollywood who had far fewer achievements were hailed as national icons the bengali or marathi industry which has produced great artistes also suffered from the same fateit is refreshing to note that this trend is changing neelakantan added and predicted once the indian film industry converges and language barriers break down we will be able to take on the world and compete with hollywood in scale and content and aim for the global dominance knocking out hollywood from its pedestalwhat to his mind does bollywood need to do to catch upcontinuing his conversation with a news agency neelakantan said it needs to start thinking that there is an india outside mumbai the era of mindless masala in the name of entertainment is over people are exposed to global content now and the brand name of a star is no guarantee for box office successpointing to the examples of baahubali jai bhim and minnal murali neelakantan said they are pure entertainers but have a deeper message each film is rooted to the culture in which it is made and yet it has a universal appeal baahubali or rrr are telugu films talking about telugu heroes acted by telugu stars yet they break barriers because of the making style and the story telling they are not apologetic about their own culture instead they celebrate it with