NEW DELHI: India and Poland have agreed to consider an exchange of film festivals to familiarise people in both countries with their movies.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told Polish Culture and National Heritage Minister Bogdan Zdarajewski earlier this week that Indian viewers gave a lot of importance to Polish cinema and an indication of this was the special section on contemporary Polish cinema at the forthcoming International Film Festival of India in Goa commencing on 23 November.

The aim of increasing exchanges would be to diversify the levels of cooperation and exchange in the areas of Film Festivals, and exchange programmes between National Film Schools of both the countries.

Films from Poland will also be screened in “Spotlight on Poland” section and in the “A Cut Above” section.

Regarding the proposed ‘Audio Visual Co-production Agreement’ between the two countries, Soni told the Polish Minister that the due process of Inter Ministerial consultations would be completed shortly.

Both Ministers discussed the possibility of exchange programme between the National Film Schools at Lodz, Poland and the Film and Television Institute of India at Pune and the Satyajit Ray Film and TV Institute in Kolkata. The latter has indicated that it would be interested in entering into an agreement with National Film Schools, Lodz, Poland. The agreement would focus on ‘Student Exchange Programmes’ and ‘Faculty Exchange Programmes’.

Nine films from Poland will be screened at IFFI and Lech Majewski’s film “The Mill and the Cross” was being featured in the international section. Some of the prominent films in the Spotlight Section on Poland include “The Winner” directed by Wieslaw Saniewski, “Heritage” directed by Andrzej Baranski and “The Entanglement” directed by Jacek Bromski.