Kolkata, Sep 7 - When a new breed of sleek and technically sound Bengali movies such as 'Anuranan' and 'Dwanda' made its way into the theatres in the land of Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, many felt the dwindling film industry would be revived. But leading filmmakers feel such films don't promise big bucks.

A handful of these movies, catering to a globalised upper middle class audience, has done well at the box office. But this genre ignores the vast number of rural and semi-urban Bengali population, making it economically less viable.

'The so called 'urban middle class audience' is so small that it fails to generate substantial revenue for producers,' ace filmmaker Gautam Ghosh told IANS.

The new experiment began in 2006 with ad filmmaker-turned-director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's 'Anuranan', which explored the beauty of human relationships when individuals strike a chord or resonance with one another.

The principal characters, all from the upper classes, included an NRI couple - played Rahul Bose and Rituparna Sengupta - that returns to Kolkata and runs into another affluent couple - Raima Sen and Rajat Kapoor.

'Anuranan' became the first Bengali movie to be released in the US and ran for 10 weeks in Kolkata. Its success inspired films like US-based Suman Ghosh's 'Dwanda', Roy Chowdhury's 'Antaheen', besides Anjan Dutt's 'Bong Connection'.

Well known director Rituparno Ghosh's latest film 'Sob Charitro Kalponik', starring Bipasha Basu and Prasenjeet, also has NRI characters.

'Bong Connection' that had Raima Sen in one of the lead roles got released only in the metros and some big cities, but director Dutt says the strategy was wrong.

'The distributors do not release our films in the suburbs as they think it only appeals to the urban audience, which I think is wrong,' said Dutt.

'Urban cineastes mostly watch films on DVD. And I do think that the rural audience is huge. At the end of the day money matters,' said Dutt, who has also told the story of the shrinking Anglo-Indian population in his film 'Bow Barracks Forever'.

'I don't think all the movies belonging to this genre are being appreciated, except a few creations like 'Bong Connection', 'Madly Bangali' or 'Anuranan'.