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India woos international filmmakers at Toronto festival
India’s National Film Development Corporation has upgraded the booth at the Industry Centre to a full-fledged pavilion as it targets international filmmakers to select the country as a production destination
TORONTO: The Indian government had its largest presence yet at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), with the National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) upgrading the booth at the Industry Centre to a full-fledged pavilion as it targets international filmmakers to select the country as a production destination.
The reasoning given for the upsized presence at TIFF is to attract visibility for India for collaboration with global filmmakers as representatives of production houses and national film commissions attend TIFF in large numbers.
TIFF’s senior director, Industry and Theatrical, Geoff Macnaughton said India’s pavilion was the largest this year and said the festival was excited to enhance “collaboration” with it.
“We consider Toronto as one of the prestigious film festivals,” NFDC managing director Ravinder Bhakar said. India has an existing co-production treaty with Canada but he said it needs to be “reactivated” to attract Canadian filmmakers to India. While collaborations with countries like France or the United Kingdom have been fruitful, that’s not yet the case with Canada, despite it having a significant Indo-Canadian diaspora.
Bhakar was hopeful that will change as he also pitched India to Indo-Canadian filmmakers in Toronto, while meeting with agencies like Telefilm Canada and the Ontario Film Commission, while using the opportunity provided by TIFF to network with European commissions as well.
The response, he said, has been “amazing”, adding, “More and more we interact, more people will come forward.”
The NFDC team is also pitching the incentives offered by India, which were announced by Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur at Cannes and are being reinforced at Toronto, given the industry platform it offers.
Among those, according to promotional literature distributed by NFDC in Toronto titled Film in India, is that for qualifying projects, the international production house can claim an amount up to 30% of the expenditure in India, subject to a maximum of ₹20 million ($251,079), though that can increase by another ₹5 million ($62,769) if the production employs 15% or more manpower in India. The formats covered includes features, fiction and documentary, TV or web series or shows, and even post-production work.
Bhakar added there were additional incentives offered by state governments as well with NFDC facilitating the process. And NFDC wants to make it clear that things have changed in India: “There will not be bureaucratic hurdles. NFDC is the single nodal agency. That’s the kind of eco-system that has been created in the last few years.”
Other objectives include viewing films screened at TIFF, and trying to get some of them for the International Film Festival of India, scheduled to be held in Goa in November, and attract international talent to serve as mentors for IFFI programme to nurture 75 young Indian filmmakers.
The Toronto film festival runs till September 18.
