Bollywood comes to San Jose
The audience watches a movie at San Jose’s Towne Theatre, which specializes in Bollywood films. (Robert Durell / For The Times)
Inside one of the Towne Theatre’s auditoriums.
“If you go to the AMC theater, they don’t play South Indian movies,” says Sudhakar Desireddy, a software engineer for Cisco Systems and a Towne Theatre regular. “This is our only option.” (Robert Durell / For The Times)
An employee who goes by the single name Gurvrinder changes a poster. (Robert Durell / For The Times)
Towne Theatre manager Raman Sanchula in his office.
The Towne Theatre is operated by Big Cinemas, India’s largest movie theater chain. The company is a division of Reliance, the Mumbai-based conglomerate controlled by Indian billionaire Anil Ambani that is also bankrolling Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks studio. (Robert Durell / For The Times)