Round Table: For a better diffusion of European Cinema in India, and of Indian Cinema in Europe. View Photo Gallery

Many important topics arose from the Round Table conference held in New Delhi on 24th July as part of the Osian’s-Cinefan Festival of Asian Cinema. This conference was the result of a collaboration between Osian’s-Cinefan and the European Coordination of Film Festivals (with the support of the European Union MEDIA Programme, the Italian Government and The Royal Netherlands Embassy in New Delhi).

Speakers from India and Europe discussed topics of mutual interest such as the distribution of Indian Films in Europe, and European Films in India, how film festivals can contribute towards this, and how far coproductions can play a part in heightening awareness and understanding of each other’s cinemas and, by definition, culture while also increasing chances of distribution through the commercial circuit in the coproducing countries.

Festival directors, producers, distributors, film directors, shared their experiences in front of an audience of film professionals, journalists and critics. About 100 people from India and Europe as well as Asia (Osian’s-Cinefan festival participants), had the unique opportunity to gather on this occasion.

Starting Point

The Indian film market is dominated by its own films and Hollywood, and English language films do not even reach 4% of the market. But, independent Indian films find it as difficult as European or indeed any non-Hollywood films, to access the Indian market.

On the other hand, a European Audiovisual Observatory analysis of admissions in 15 countries of the European Union, showed that 72% of the market was taken up by American films in 2003 with only 19.4% by domestic products. European films outside their national market reached 6.3% and others got 2.2%.

It was made abundantly clear that both European films and Indian films needed to be promoted to increase their circulation outside their frontiers.

One of the few European films that enjoyed successful distribution in India was Run Lola Run (Germany) by Tom Tykwer in 2001.

200 films from Asian countries were distributed in the EU between 1996 and 2002. Almost a third of admissions reached by these films were recorded in France, followed by Germany and UK. Only 19 films out of these were from India. In the top 20 Asian films released in Europe in this period, Monsoon Wedding occupies the 8th position with 1.7m admissions.

Crossover films like Monsoon Wedding, Bend It Like Beckham and East is East have each reached more than USD 20 million. There is a hidden potential of India-oriented content that can be marketed effectively to a non-Indian audience.

Communication

One of the first elements that emerged during the Round Table conference was the lack of communication between the two industries: the first condition to know each other better is an exchange of information. It was proposed to set up a website or mailing list (or extending already existing sites) to provide European production and distribution companies, festivals, media, film clubs with information on recent Indian cinema, and vice versa.

It was agreed that film festivals and film clubs are an important means - sometimes the only ones - for promoting European cinema in India and vice versa. The conference participants unanimously underlined the necessity of an organization in India providing European Festivals with all necessary information and material (videos, DVD, prints, biographies, filmographies and so on) and in Europe through organizations such as Unifrance or Export Union of German Cinema.

It was highly recommended that one place in India be established (perhaps one of the existing festivals) to offer screening facilities of all recent Indian films. Osian’s-Cinefan could be one of the best venues where this type of professional meetings could be held, or where information required could be centralized.

The European participants offered to compose packages of European films, which could be shown in various festivals and could as well travel to cinema centres in Bombay, Delhi, Kolkata and other cities. The European Coordination of Film Festivals announced its intention to see if the screening fees demanded by many Europe-based world sales agencies can be paid by them.

Co-Productions

One of the reasons for signing co-production agreements is that they allow partnership companies to share the risk and aim for higher budgets. Another aim is to go in for partnerships with a possibility of distribution tie-ups to reach out and sell films to territories outside the national borders.

Italy is close to signing a landmark co-production and co-distribution agreement with India, which is also expected to encourage Indian crews to shoot in Italy and vice versa.

In addition to co-production agreements on a governmental level between different European countries and India, Indian producers can access production support from existing organization such as the Hubert Bals Fund in Rotterdam or Fonds Sud in France. Goals shared by these foundations include support for writers, for distribution, post-production and also for production. The principle criteria of film funding have to be very well known in order to carry on an associated production. For example: Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s film Nizhalkkuthu (Shadow Kill) had a long list of co-producers. It included Artcam International, Paris, with the support of several French government agencies and ministries. In addition, there was the Hubert Bals Fund in Rotterdam, the Montecinemaverita Foundation and the Swiss Agency For Development and Cooperation and even the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

It is important to facilitate contacts between European and Indian producers.

It has been announced that the co–production agreements between India and Italy could be eventually signed in Venice in September 2004 during the Int’l Film Festival.

European films face a special difficulty in India: language. It was felt that films in English or with English subtitles could be shown all over India at least in the major cities but was also agreed that dubbing films into the major

Indian languages would help to reach a larger public. This dubbing work cannot be done without financial support at governmental level coming from Europe or from other institutions in India.

This holds true also for all promotional initiatives to lunch European film distribution in India and vice versa.

The conference stressed that an exchange of films, a better knowledge of each other and of the different cultures cannot only concern the recent film production, but has to include the film history as an integral part of the national culture.

It had been regretted unanimously that a big part of the classical traditions in cinema (in all part of the country) is no longer available in the form of prints or negatives or DVDs. A way should be found to take care of the film heritage as otherwise this important part of national culture will be lost forever.

SPEAKERS:

Aruna Vasudev, Director of Osian’s-Cinefan and Editor of Osian’s-Cinemaya
Romano Fattorossi , Director of InVideo Festival, Milan, Italy; Member of the Board of Directors of the European Coordination of Film Festivals
Saba Ali - Distributor
Italo Spinelli – Artistic Director of Asiatica Film Mediale, Rome
Kamal Jain – Distributor
Bikram Singh – Film Director
Adoor Gopalakrishnan – Film director
Siddheshvar Dayal – Exhibitor
Klaus Eder – Programmer of Munich Film Festival, General Secretary of FIPRESCI (The International Federation of Film Critics)
Deepankar Mukhopadhyay Managing Director National Film Development Corporation, India
Elise Jalladeau – Artcam, producer of films by young European and particularly of Asian auteurs
Neelam Kapur – Director, Directorate of International Film Festivals of India
Girish Kasaravalli – Film director and President of the Bangalore Film Festival
Mario Liggeri - Director of International Relations Service of The Italian Government – Direzione Generale Cinema (DGC), and Italian Delegate to Eurimages
Sudhir Nandgaonkar – Director of the Asian Film Festival, Mumbai and Artistic Director of the Mumbai International Film Festival
Olivier Père – General Delegate of the Directors’ Fortnight of Cannes
Jabbar Patel – Director of Pune Film Festival
Bianca Taal – Rotterdam Film Festival, CineMart, Hubert Bals Fund
P.K. Naiar – Former Director of the National Film Archive of India


A partnership between the Osian’s-Cinefan Festival of Asian Cinema and the European Coordination of Film Festivals.
The European Coordination of Film Festivals is a group of 220 film festivals in Europe. Its members develop common actions aimed at a better knowledge of the different cinemas of Europe, whether these are short or feature films, documentaries, animation or recent films, or films from the patrimony as well as experimental films. They elaborate common programmes and put them at the disposal of all their members: «Europe in Short», nine programmes so far, dedicated to the best of the European short film; three programmes of documentaries, «Docs in Europe», that constitute a pertinent panorama of this genre on the entire continent; and «15 by 15: The European Film Heritage», a set of rare films from different member states of the Union, put together for the passage to the third millennium. The Coordination also develops training and promotion activities, and staff exchanges between festivals.
Supported by the MEDIA+ programme of the European Union, the Coordination has, form this year, been developing activities of promotion of European cinema destined for festivals outside the continent. This includes support to the diffusion of European films in those festivals, constitution of a package of films for festivals in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and European countries outside the Union, the setting up of training for professionals, and organisation of round tables. Within this framework the Coordination has decided to cooperate with the Osian’s-Cinefan Festival in New Delhi for the organisation of a conference on the diffusion of European cinema in India, and vice versa.


India is for Europe an interesting individual case. First of all, it is a country of culture and opening on the world, a country where a very large public is likely to be interested in the diversity and the singularity of European cinemas. Moreover, it is one of the few countries in the world to have preserved an essential part of its cinematographic market for its own national production. This production is diversified and of good quality, as many spectators of European festivals have realised. But it is difficult for this production to cross over into the frontiers of Europe, except for the special case of England.

These few observations show the pertinence of a round table from which solutions for a better mutual circulation of films could emerge. Film festivals, which constitute a perfect echo chamber for all kinds of cinemas that are outside the commercial format, definitely have a role to play in the reinforcement of the mutual diffusion of Indian and European films.

During the round table, the following aspects will be approached:

• The situation of the diffusion of Indian cinema in Europe and of European cinema in India: distribution, exploitation



• Analysis of one case: Italy



• Co-production: Solution to a better diffusion?



• Role of Festivals in the diffusion of Indian cinema in Europe



• Role of Indian festivals in the diffusion of European cinema in India



• Prospects for better mutual diffusion.

With the Support of the Royal Netherlands Embassy and