India 'Official Partner Country' at Cannes Market

Cannes, France, May 18 (UNI) India was projected as the 'Official Partner Country' at 'Marche', the sprawling film market in the Cannes Film Festival complex, last night.

Speaking after inaugurating the Indian Pavilion at 'Marche', Indian Ambassador Ranjan Mathai said India was now agressively reaching out to the global movie audiences and was a popular element in promoting cross cultural understanding.

Mr Serge Sobczynski, the curator of the Cinema of the World section showcasing 6 Indian films, said he was excited by the diversity in Indian cinema and wished he had more slots.

Bobby Bedi and Amit Khanna were of the view that Cannes was serving as an important networking hub for the Industry and the Indian focus would be a good indicator of international audience reactions for the future.

Bollywood film stalwarts Amit Khanna, Bobby Bedi, CII's Ajay Khanna, ministry representatives along with participating delegates were present on the occasion.

The Indian pavilion, located in the Theme Village, has over 30 participants from the film and film-related companies. These include biggies like UTV, Adlabs (now part of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) and Eros Entertainment, apart from NFDC.

Meanwhile, some participants, apart from showing DVDs and cassettes at their stalls, were also hiring mini-theatres in the market to screen some of their very recent products for prospective buyers. The entire effort was being coordinated by CII which has stated that in all, over 80 companies ''will position themselves at Cannes'' this year, with 150 films and 35 new projects.

'Marche' is the biggest film market globally and comes alive annually for the duration of the Cannes Festival in May. Millions of dollars worth of deals are struck here, contacts (followed by contracts) are made. These are not merely for buying and selling of films for the big (and small) screens of Europe and elsewhere.

They also include arrangements for co-productions, funding of films under production, casting and engaging crews.

To commemorate the country's 60th year of Independence (which is coinciding with Cannes' 60th birthday), India has been chosen to open the screenings in the 'Cinema of the World' section. A seven-film package of recent Indian movies has been selected by Cannes Festival for the purpose. It includes blockbusters like 'Guru' and 'Lage Raho Munnabhai'. The films would be shown over two days, May 19-20.

UNI