NEW DELHI: Even as Indian cinema is being promoted at the annual Cannes International Film Festival, the Information and Broadcasting and Tourism Ministries are together promoting the Cinemas of India and the country as a tourist destination, D P Reddy, Joint Secretary (Films) in the I&B Ministry.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Indian Pavilion at Cannes, he said the Incredible India campaign of the Tourism Ministry is being promoted at the festival being held from 11 to 22 May. He said the brand Cinemas of India was being integrated with Incredible India campaign, the idea being to successfully promote India as a destination for films and at the same time explore partnerships to bring around more co-productions with the global film fraternity.
The pavilion, set up by National Film Development Corporation on behalf of the Ministry of I&B has been created with the objective of facilitating a platform for interaction between Indian Producers and International Producers, Sales Agents and Distributors. At the same time the Pavilion would endeavour to promote India as a ‘Filming Destination’.
He said there was a proposal to include the External Affairs and Commerce Ministries from next year to be a part of this larger initiative. This would enable the I&B Ministry to take Indian Cinema on to the global platform.
The Pavilion will see a host of networking sessions, especially with the film fraternity from Australia, Canada, France, Israel and Qatar. Besides this, Binger Film Lab from Netherlands, will hold a panel discussion on co-production with India. The focus would be to unfold the opportunities, pitfalls and unexpected discoveries in making Indian cinema.
Film Bazaar, an annual film market set up by NFDC, with a view to promote co-production and sales, is playing host to the International film fraternity and at the same time introduce six Directors at Cannes, including upcoming and emerging talent – Anurag Kashyap, Anusha Rizvi, Dibakar Banerjee, Haobam Paban Kumar, Laxmikant Shetgaonkarm, and Shekhar Kammula. This would reinforce India‘s linguistic and cultural diversity and the vast pool of talent that the International fraternity could draw from with a perspective to collaborate and work with them. The intention was to introduce their work at Cannes and provide them a platform by which they could explore new relationships.
Film locations are being promoted to attract tourist traffic from abroad and within the country, thereby promoting India not only as a tourist destination, but also a filming destination.
The I&B Ministry through the “India Pavilion” aims to utilise the forum of film festivals and markets with the aim of promoting Film Tourism and India as filming destination. The objective is to promote the brand of Cinemas of India as a part of the Incredible India campaign.
The NFDC aims at facilitating collaborations between the Indian film industry and the global film fraternity in the realm of production and distribution. The Film Bazaar India, set up by NFDC in 2007, was part of the objective to enable the achievement of this vision.
The India Pavilion has published a Guide consisting of information about the Indian film industry professionals attending the market and the festival. The India Pavilion Guide 2011 provides information about the companies and delegates in Cannes from India. It also contains information about various co-production treaties that India has signed, leading international film festivals in India, guidelines on filming in India, and market/ festival screenings of Indian films at Cannes. This guide is available at the India Pavilion stall, located at Village International Riviera–Pavilion 110, Cannes and will be distributed to all visitors to the Pavilion in the India Pavilion Kit.
The Confederation of Indian Industry has also set up a pavilion for the seventh year at Cannes to help the Indian film industry. This pavilion has stalls and those taking stalls have also been included in the CII Film Delegation to Cannes.
In addition, representatives of several festivals being held in India apart from individual filmmakers are also present at Cannes. These include the representatives of the Jaipur International Film Festival and the soon-to-be-launched Jaipur Animation Film Festival.
