Lucrative business innings for India at Cannes 2010

NEW DELHI - An official entry of “Udaan”, the second appearance of Mrinal Sen’s classic “Khandahar”, over 50 Indian companies with more than 150 movies to sell — the 63rd Cannes International Film Festival is brimming with an Indian presence.

The festival that commenced May 12 and ends Sunday has been positive for Indian companies that came under the banner of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s business-to-business market place (CII B2B Market Place) at Palais there.

The gala saw an overall revival of the film market with brisk buying and selling activity for Indian companies involved in showbiz.

The participants included UTV Motion Pictures, IDream Independent Pictures (IDIP), Accel Animation Studio, Supreme Communications, Sarthak Movies and others.

UTV launched Vikramaditya Motwane’s “Udaan” at the market. The movie also represented India at the festival in the Un Certain Regard section and generated buzz among both buyers and critics alike.

The studio’s slate at the event also included movies like “Peepli Live”, “Harischandrachi Factory”, “Paan Singh Tomar” and animation films “Arjun” and “Alibaba and Forty One Thieves” among others.

IDIP, a leading sales agent for non-Bollywood independent films, introduced horror movie “Fired”, critically acclaimed “Love Sex aur Dhokha” (LSD) and “I Am Kalam”.

“All three titles were well received by a healthy mix of buyers as well as film festival programmers. ‘Fired’ and ‘I Am Kalam’ encountered nearly packed houses at the market showcases, where as LSD had a healthy audience turnout as well,” said an IDIP official.

“We are confident to close some major territories in the next few months,” the official added.

Prashant Burra, co-producer of Ram Gopal Varma’s scary outing “Phoonk 2″, said: “My objective was to sell ‘Phoonk 2′ for overseas sales and look for co-production for my new project. The market was vibrant and overall it was a great experience… I am putting together a new project to pitch at Cannes next year.”

Beyond Illusion, an animation studio under Supreme Communications that experienced Cannes for the first time with their 3D animation musical “Return of Shree Krishna”, also saw a positive response.

“We had a fantastic exposure to the Cannes film market… We have generated three inquiries for an international project,” said Kunal Dholaka, creative director and CEO, Beyond Illusion.

CII worked closely with The Film & Television Producers Guild of India Ltd., Film Federation of India, South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce for the B2B market.

CII has been coordinating the India participation at the Cannes Film Market for the last seven years.