A 'Sandalwood' film with a U.S. setting

Having recently written a post about Slumdog Millionaire, I was interested to run across this Wash. Post piece about a low-budget movie being made by a young Indian-born, U.S.-raised director and set in Washington, D.C. and environs. The movie's language is Kannada not Hindi, which makes it a 'Sandalwood' not Bollywood product, as the article explains:

"Technically, Jagadeesh's movie, 'e-Preeti,' is not a product of Bollywood, which refers to the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai, but of 'Sandalwood,' the nickname for films produced in the Southern Indian city of Bangalore in a regional language called Kannada. Because Hindi is India's national language, Bollywood films tend to play across the country and are better known overseas. But India's more than half-a-dozen regional film industries are also bustling enterprises that attract tens of millions of fans within their regions.

Because movie-going is a such a major habit in India -- young city dwellers might catch as many as three new releases a week -- there is also a steady market for even relatively low-budget productions."

No wonder the Indian film industries are booming.