MUMBAI: At Cannes, 2011 the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Ministry of Tourism are hosting the Indian Pavilion from 11 – 20 May through NFDC (National Film Development Corporation of India).
Indian Cinema is now being seen as an extremely important element for tourism and one of the first steps toward achieving it is this India Pavilion at Cannes by NFDC.
NFDC with this humble step of promoting Indian Cinema will add value to Incredible India on international grounds.
The India Pavilion will publish a guide consisting of companies and delegates in Cannes from India. It will also contain information about various co-production treaties that India has signed, leading international films festivals in India, guidelines on filming in India, and market/festival screenings of India films at Cannes. It will also host Film Bazaar, where all the producers, sales agents, festival organizers, press and delegates from India will be a part of and interactively explore partnerships.
Interestingly the India Pavilion, by NFDC will be promoting six special directors – Dibakar Bannerjee, Anurag Kashyap, Laxmikant Shetgaokar, Haobam Paban Kumar, Shekhar Kammula and Anusha Rizvi known for edgy cinema.
NFDC managing director Nina Gupta says, "It was set up with the primary goal of planning, promoting and organizing an integrated and efficient development of the Indian film industry and to foster excellence in cinema. The initiatives being planned in Cannes and in other film markets and festivals across the world stem from this objective and aim at facilitating collaborations between the Indian film industry and the global film fraternity in the realms of production and distribution. Film Bazaar India, set up by NFDC in 2007, was part of the objective to enable this."
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (Government of India) joint secretary D. P. Reddy officially inaugurated the India Pavillion at the Cannes Film Festival by welcoming Indian delegates and members of the international film trade fraternity. The pavilion, set up by National Film Development Corporation Ltd on behalf of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, has been created with the objective of facilitating one on one meeting between Indian producers and international producers, sales agents and distributors.
Reddy said, "This year the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Ministry of Tourism have come together to create a unique initiative to promote Indian cinema internationally and at the same time explore partnerships for the Indian film fraternity in the international domain. Integrating with Ministry of Tourism’s Incredible India campaign is the brand Cinemas of India, the idea being to successfully promote India as a destination for films and at the same time explore partnerships to bring around more co-productions with the global film fraternity. Next year we will go a step further and appeal to the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce to pitch in and be a part of this larger initiative. We have reason to believe that this coming together of Ministries will certainly help our endeavor to take Indian Cinema on to the global platform". He then went on to laud National Film Development Corporation Ltd (NFDC) for the commendable achievement in presenting the India Pavilion with a new and vibrant look. He expressed his optimism at such an effort bearing positive results for the film fraternity and for the Country as a whole."
