Italy To Showcase India In Film

Indo-Italian Chamber Takes The Initiative At Festa Italiana

Bhisham Mansukhani - Mumbai

The Indo Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has set a unique precedence by committing to take the initiative of flying down a delegation of Italian directors and producers to India to hunt for film appropriate locations.

In an exclusive with Express Travel & Tourism, secretary general Andrea Bonardi said, "In our efforts to bring Italy and India closer to each other both economically and culturally, we believe that cinema can play a very important role. From an industrial point of view Italy and India can be very interesting locations and both have a very developed film industry. However, this potential is not fully exploited and following the delegation of Indian producers to Italy in July, it will be important to have a similar delegation from Italy to India."

"In the latter, the Italian delegates will be meeting Indian producers and distributors to consider co-production opportunities and also distribution of Italian films. The delegation will visit the cities of Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, which we consider three major production centres of India and are therefore the best itinerary to generate business developments. During their visit, we will be organising bilaterial seminars presenting the two industries. These seminars will be followed by business meetings between the two delegations," added Bonardi.

Though Bonardi said it was premature to put out a list of visiting members of the Italian film industry, he revealed that the delegation would be led by AIP (Audio-visual Industrial Promotion) - a holding company co-ordinating the various players in the Italian film industry such as MIFED - the film market, CINECITTA - the film city, the Venice film festival and Cinema Italia, which is the organisation promoting Italian cinema abroad.

"We are in discussion with AIP to request the presence of Pupi Avati, one of the most renowned Italian directors to our event," said Bonardi.

The Chamber started bilateral promotion of the film industry a couple of years ago but the first concrete results can be seen only today as this industry in the two countries has been more difficult to handle than other traditional industries. In conclusion, Bonardi mentioned that, "Of course, we would be happy if as a result of all these activities, there will come a time when more Italian films are screened in India and more Indian films are shot in Italy. Finally an Indo-Italian co-production would be our best achievement."