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| Selling dreams and cash prospects to Indian dream merchants |
| BS Reporters / Mumbai Mar 17, 2010, 00:37 IST |
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Bollywood’s vibrant film business is attracting the attention of movie companies acrosss the world — France, Germany, Turkey, the UK and US.
About 150 foreign delegates are here for Ficci Frames, the three-day event on the media and entertainment (M&E) industry organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. They’re looking for various things — co-production deals, buying their movie equipment, using their high-tech studios, buying their movies, wooing producers to shoot films in their countries.
“Delegates from France are also looking at the Indian market to distribute their movies,” added Karan Johar, movie producer (Dharma Porductions) and co-chairman of Ficci’s entertainment committee.
While the Japanese delegation is attending the event for a recce, the Turkish delegation has plans to promote its country’s locations and also forge content-sharing alliances with Indian film makers. Says Stare Yildirim, head of the Turkish delegation: “We are looking at co-production opportunities with Indian and Turkish actors to begin with and once these are accepted by the audiences, we can start screening Indian films in Turkey.”
Indian production houses have shot films abroad mostly in Switzerland, the US and Australia and have been looking for exotic new locations: Turkey could provide one.
The Germans are looking at opportuntities to sell their high-tech movie equipment to Indian production houses. And, wooing the latter to use their advanced studios in centres like Munich to shoot films or process these.: “We are looking at inward inflows from marketing our locations, our equipment and production facilities,” says Peter Englert, part of the media and entertainment delegation from Germany.
Delegates from the US said India was a key market and after the success of the movie, Avatar, even more so. Louise Sams, president, Turner Broadcasting, at the event highlighted how India received the largest investment from the global company last year. “Despite the global economic slowdown, India continued to be the largest revenue market in Asia-Pacific for us. It is the one of the fastest-growing media industries across the globe,” Sams said.
Alliances between Indian production houses and foreign movie companies are slowly picking up, though not all have fired box offices. One such effort was Johar’s My Name is Khan, largely shot in Los Angeles and was distributed by Fox Star Studios. Fox is believed to have struck deals with some leading film makers like Vipul Shah to co-produce but nothing is on the table yet.
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