India Pavilion woos foreign filmmakers at Cannes

A special poster for the golden jubilee of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) was released as the India Pavilion was inaugurated on Wednesday at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival.

Amit Khare, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Jerome Paillard, Executive Director, Marche Du Film, Cannes Film Market, Prasoon Joshi, Chairman, Central Board of Film Certification and National Award-winning filmmaker Rima Das were part of the inaugural session.

Apart from the special IFFI poster which flaunts a golden peacock in all its glory, a comprehensive Film Guide was given out to showcase the importance of the film ecosystem and government incentives to shoot in India, according to a statement by the Press Information Bureau.

Khare, in his address, highlighted the emerging trends in the country's media and entertainment industry.

He spoke about the growing importance of regional cinema in the country; the increasing role of states in giving incentives to shoot films, which is an outcome of the realization of interconnect between films, tourism and economy; and the increasing focus on technology like animation and virtual reality.

Khare highlighted the steps taken by the government to ease shooting of films in India through the Film Facilitation Office that facilitates Single Window Clearance, and said the government is exploring avenues to give further incentives to foreign filmmakers to shoot in India.

Paillard spoke about the participation of India at Cannes and said more and more people are looking to collaborate with India and Indian filmmakers.

Joshi termed the India Pavilion as a hub of not only ideas but also execution, while Das, whose Assamese film "Village Rockstars" was chosen as India's entry for the Oscars' foreign language film category, appreciated the efforts of the government to promote regional cinema in the country.

The India Pavilion is aimed at showcasing Indian cinema across linguistic, cultural and regional diversity, with the aim of forging international partnerships in distribution, production, filming in India, script development, technology, and promoting film sales and syndication.

--IANS

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