Film bazaar in Goa a success
(No Ratings Yet)Goa’s five-day Film Bazaar 2006, held in the backdrop of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) currently underway here, has ended with many business enquiries and possible deals in the pipeline.
“It succeeded in its objective of showcasing Indian cinema to the world and also generating business leads and contacts to exhibitors and delegates. Majority of these leads will transform into business in the coming months,” said a statement from the organisers of the event, catalysed by the business lobby network Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
Most exhibitors were “satisfied” with their participation, and many also confirmed participation for the Cannes Film Market — at the premier global film event on the scenic French coast — under the CII umbrella. No specific figures about likely participation in Cannes were, however, released.
The Film Bazaar, which ended Tuesday, saw the participation of some 15 exhibitors to showcase films, services, buy and sell movies, promote and market shooting locales, understand new business development and strike meaningful partnerships in the movie making business.
There were seven workshops with presentations from speakers from India and aboard during the event this year.
“The Film Bazaar achieved the purpose of encouraging meetings between producers and co-production partners,” said producer-actor-writer Bobby “Deep” Bedi, who is chairperson of the CII National Entertainment Committee.
“People exchanged ideas, discussed semi-developed scripts and used the Film Bazaar as a networking ground for their future projects,” he said.
CII announced that Stephen Cohen, vice president of Ascent Media, the world’s largest post-production company, was actively looking at India as an offshore destination for post-production. He had meetings and discussions on potential partnerships with Indian companies.
Swedish Company Hepp Films also plans to set up an office in India for line-production and post-production.
Britain-based Pebble People was reported as looking at bringing its overseas line production work into India.
Francois Da Silva of EuropaCorp of France, which deals with production, distribution and acquisition, discussed new projects and scripts with independent filmmakers.
Then there was Helder Da Costa of Tropical Entertainment in Latin America who showed interest not just in Bollywood but also regional cinema, said CII sources.
Hisham Alghanim of KNCC, Kuwait, which has approximately 20 movie screens, has been looking at deals to showcase Indian films. Some 44 percent of Indian films are screened in his theatres.
In Goa, he recruited 50 people for his theatre screens. A theatre owner from Oman also accompanied him to source movies, the CII announced.
Officials from the Chinese Import Export of Films agency were also in Goa to familiarise themselves with the Indian film industry.
Besides, there were producers from Argentina, Poland, Australia and Israel looking at possibilities to co-produce and distribute Indian movies.
Exhibitors like post-production company Prasad Group got 20 enquiries and Digiquest 30.
The governments of Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Goa and Rajasthan promoted their locales to lure filmmakers. Countries like Iceland, Jamaica, Greece, France, Australia, which offer tax sops and incentives for producers to shoot in foreign locales, had some one-to-one meetings at the Film Bazaar.
— IANS
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