SHAJI N. KARUN NISHAD (Hindi) Producer: Sukhwant Dhadda, FTII graduate Stars: Archana and Rajit Kapur (top), Jaya Bachchan

When Kathapurushan was released in Kerala in 1995, it ran for just about a week. But it was extremely well received internationally, travelling to at least 30 film festivals. "I alone attended 20," says the film's director, curly-locked, 61-year-old Adoor Gopalakrishnan.

In Kolkata, 58-year-old Buddhadeb Dasgupta's Uttara made only Rs 18 lakh after its release. The semi-washout didn't stop the movie from becoming an art house favourite, winning Dasgupta the Best Director Award at Venice in 2000.

Praised abroad, marginalised at home, regional language makers of "serious" films are making a determined bid to bounce back. Armed with innovative financing, casting coups and even Hindi screenplays, they are trying to cross over to the domestic audience. This, as Bollywood ventures into their preserve with mainstream extravaganzas: Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas is sharing an out-of-competition platform with Woody Allen's Hollywood Ending at Cannes this year, even as Lagaan featured at Locarno last year.

JAYRAJ BHEEBATS (Hindi) Financier: K.S.A. Hakim, Dubai-based businessman Stars: Seema Biswas

Dasgupta's new film, Manda Meyer Upakshan, stars top-grossing actor Rituparna Sengupta, who plays a prostitute, and actor-politician Tapas Pal. Says the director who also doubles as a poet: "Starting with Venice and ending with two gay and lesbian festivals, Uttara found an audience abroad, not here." Now he wants more. Produced by NRI Aryya Bhattacharya's Arjoe Entertainment, Dasgupta hopes his film will make an impression on the home audience. But with his film invited to Venice and Toronto, he has his sight firmly peeled on the festival circuit too.

Veteran Mrinal Sen's new film, Amar Bhubon, has been financed by Mumbai businessman P.D. Gupta. Starring Nandita Das, it is a story of a Muslim woman caught between her former husband and her current partner. But the traditionally crusty 79-year-old filmmaker is actually speaking a market-friendly language: "One has to find an agency to mobilise the minority audiences. A film doesn't cost much. It's the selling of a film that is expensive."

Across in Kottayam, Kerala, younger meister Jayraj, 38, is awaiting Cannes' approval for his film, in Hindi this time. Bheebats, about child abuse, stars Seema Biswas. Financed by a Dubai-based businessman K.S.A. Hakim, it's the third in his series on the navarasas. As the director puts it, "I want my movies to have a wider audience. Thanks to the Internet, it's very easy to take movies to foreign festivals now. But everyone still wants commercial success."

That is why Shaji N. Karun-discovered at Cannes in 1988 with Piravi and lauded for his next two films-has temporarily deserted his native Malayalam for Hindi. Nishad, starring Rajit Kapur and Jaya Bachchan, in a small role, is his fourth film. He has submitted a working print to Cannes and sees no reason why the film shouldn't work abroad: its theme is international enough, traversing the philosophical terrain of Buddhism and Hinduism. At a time when NFDC funding has shrunk, finances are coming from unusual sources: for Karun it came from Sukhwant Dhadda, a Film and Television Institute of India graduate who directed Ek Chadar Maili Si. "Sukhwant had the guts to trust me with making a Hindi film," says Karun, 50.

While Kathapurushan was financed by Japanese TV giant NHK who bought its world rights, Gopalakrishnan's latest film, Nizalkuth, is being co-produced by him and a French company Artcam International. Set in the 1940s, the film is about the last official hangman of the Travancore royal government.

Now that the much-debated divide between parallel and mainstream cinema has died an unnatural death (what with Raveena Tandon in Kalpana Lajmi's Daman not drawing too many sniggers, and Shyam Benegal doing a song-and-dance routine in Zubeida) Sen and company feel the time for travel to new pastures is now.

BUDDHADEB DASGUPTA MANDA MEYER UPAKSHAN (Bengali) Producer: NRI Aryya Bhattacharya Stars: Rituparna Sengupta and Tapas Pal

"Those who say they don't care for popular audience are lying," says Sen. Gopalakrishnan concurs. "I have never considered myself an art filmmaker. My films have always recovered money at home and I believe in aggressive selling." Kathapurushan, he says, was an exception because of a dispute with distributors.

Of course, some like Amit Khanna, president of the All India Film Producers' Council, feel the art cinema-popular movies divide was always artificial. "It was created by the Film Finance Corporation and the NFDC, which naturally promoted the films they produced. Besides there were exchange restrictions that prevented Bollywood filmmakers from taking films to festivals abroad."

Prolific filmmakers such as Rituparno Ghosh have already shown the way in mixing savvy business sense and drawing critical acclaim. Some of his films have been frequent festival fliers: Asukh (1998) was financed by southern producer D. Rama Naidu and Bariwali (1999) was produced by actor Anupam Kher as a vehicle for wife Kiron.

Both Gopalakrishnan and Dasgupta deny they make films only for international festivals or that Bollywood has bested them at their own game. "If anyone thinks that Devdas is the new fashion and aims to make only song-and-dance films for the West, they are mistaken. It's just a fad," says Gopalakrishnan.

Take that, Bollywood.

-with M.G. Radhakrishnan and Labonita Ghosh