Cannes Film Festival 2019: Government of India announces new initiatives to make Indian film industry a global force

The annual celebration of cinema along the French Riviera, the Cannes Film Festival has dominated the headlines since the past week. While the red carpet saw the Indian film fraternity put their best fashion game on, it did miss out the point that it is a ‘Film’ festival and there wasn’t any representation in the film segments.

However, there were panel rounds and discussions held at length and in one such panel round, the Government of India announced their new initiatives and policies to promote Indian film industry across the globe.

Indian delegations under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) secretary Amit Khare made some major announcements at Cannes and also put forth ideas how they are planning to make the Indian film industry a global force. Here are some of the polices they announced:

a) Significant steps towards supporting independent film makers by way of a co-production film fund.

b) Incentivising foreign productions for filming in India.

c) Single window clearance mechanism for filming in India for foreign and Indian film producers through web portal under the Film Facilitation office.

d) Promoting single-screen cinema exhibitions in smaller towns in India.

The Producers Guild of India also played a very significant part in taking up the initiative for making the alliances strong.

Kulmeet Makkar, Chief Executive Officer, Producers Guild Of India said, “This year at Cannes, we are happy to further strengthen our existing relationships with Producers Guild of America (PGA), Film France, and Nordic Film Commission and at the same time, Producers Guild of India signed a fresh MOU with European Film Commissioners Network which will boost film productions in India and the entire Europe. In addition, there are many other alliances in the pipeline including a formal working relationship with the Canadian media producers association.”