Indian films find new markets

With the Indian entertainment exports set to cross the Rs 1,500-crore mark this year and Indian films becoming popular in the international markets like north Europe, Germany, France and Japan, film Industry representatives said that producers should formulate a plan for distribution of their films in these markets.

Speaking to Business Standard, Amit Khanna, chairman of the Reliance Entertainment Ltd, said that Indian films were now finding viewers beyond West Asian countries, United Kingdom and North America.

"In the past three years, markets in Germany, France and Japan have opened up, which is indeed a good news for us," he added.

The most encouraging aspect of all these developments has been the acceptance of Indian alternative cinema in foreign countries, according to Khanna.

"In China too, there is a huge untapped film market and the talks are underway with that country to allow more Indian films."

Recently, the mainstream cable companies in the United States started a 'Video on Demand' for the Indian films, a step that would greatly boost the market for these films, as it would check piracy, he observed.

Latin America too is turning out to be a promising market for Indian films and the industry has a plan to dub its films in Spanish to cater to the needs of viewers there, he said.

Renowned film producer Bobby Bedi, however, stated that India still has just half per cent of the global film market share, a huge gap to be filled.

"Urgent strategies are needed for this purpose," said Bedi, who is the chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII) National Entertainment Committee.

Bedi said that producers should not sell the total rights of their films to a single distributor.