Punjabi film Dharti is making waves among Indians in Australia. The low-budget movie, released two weeks ago, has collected Rs 1.19 crore from 10 screens, overtaking the Abhishek Bachchan-starrer Dum Maro Dum. Both were released around the same time. The star-studded Hindi movie has collected Rs 95.40 lakh from 26 screens. This makes Dharti the top grosser among Indian films in Australia.

Dharti's success is not confined to Australia. It is number one in returns to exhibitors in the UK from an Indian film. The average collection per hall has been 1,771. For Dum Maro Dum, the figure is 833.

With audiences looking beyond Bollywood, regional films are fast catching the fancy of Indians living abroad. More than a dozen movies in an array of languages Punjabi, Tamil, Telegu, Bhojpuri, Bengali and Marathi are scheduled for overseas launch this summer.

Many of these will have English sub-titles for a wider appeal, a trend that started last year with Tamil film Vinnayithaandi Varuvaayaa. It was followed by Rajinikanth's Endhiran, which earned Rs 70 crore overseas.

Film distributors are moving fast to cash in on the trend. Eros International, for instance, has kept 15 per cent capital expenditure for distributing regional films overseas. It aims to ensure that 15-20 per cent of the total revenue from regional films comes from abroad. "We are looking for growth in these markets. Typically, regional movies are made on a budget of Rs 60 lakh to one crore, but revenues are Rs 3-4 crore. The returns are high," says Kamal Jain, CFO, Eros International.

Eros says the number of regional prints in overseas markets will also increase. "On an average, regional language movies are released with 50-100 prints overseas, while a Hindi movie is released with around 250 prints. The number for the regional market will grow by 20-25 per cent," he says.

UTV has lined up eight films in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam for release in the US, the UK and the Gulf countries, besides South-East Asian countries such as Singapore and Malaysia.