Day 3 of the Film Bazaar saw activity around the business of cinema peak with multiple parallel
meetings throughout the day between those seeking to pitch their films to
interested buyers, distributors, or festival programmers.
The Knowledge Series continued with its
amazing slate of sessions of value to the filmmaking community. The most
interesting of these was the one on ‘Films without Borders – Bridging cultures’
where Marco Mueller (Film Critic & Historian, Artistic Director, PYIFF,
Pingyao) explained in detail the Chinese market the reason for the recent
success of Indian films in that market.
“PK was the turning point for Indian films
in China when they went from being niche to being mass. The success of ‘PK’,
‘Three Idiots’ and ‘Dangal’, has really been because of the many years of
marketing that was done by the distributors of these films in China. The
marketing followed practices that resonate with Chinese audiences and included
reaching out to the Chinese superstars who endorsed these films leading to
their fan clubs spreading the message and helping these films get an opening
push. However eventually it was because the films reflected the shared values
between India and China that they did so well. Now Aamir Khan is lovingly
called Uncle Mir in China”, said Mr. Mueller. The panel then helped the
filmmakers understand what it takes for a film to travel internationally.
Mr. Mueller was on another interesting
panel that had some old India hands on it who discussed the state of South
Asian cinema and its future. Alongside Mr. Mueller, this panel included Derek
Malcolm (Film Critic), Paolo Bertolin (Programmer, Venice Film Festival),
DominiqueWelinski (Producer) and was moderated by OrlyRavid (Founder, The Film
Collaborative).
While the panel was divided over the
future of South Asian cinema, they were united in their opinion on how films
from the region can succeed globally. “It cannot just be one man’s fight, you
can’t do it alone. You need allies to push your cinema. I am very happy that
Film Bazaar has a created a space for us to come here and interact with
filmmakers”, said Mr. Mueller. This was echoed by Ms.Welinski who said, ”People
should really talk to each other, come together and organize themselves to be
able to do this better.”
Two interesting sessions involving
filmmakers were also part of the schedule. The first was a session on violence
in cinema with filmmakers DevashishMakhija (Ajji, Bhonsle) and Ivan Ayr (Soni)
engaged in a conversation with Somen Mishra (Head, Creative Development, Dharma
Productions).
When probed how he decides whether or not
to show violence on screen, Mr. Makhija said “It’s important for me to make the
audience complicit in the violence on screen but I am careful not to make it
exploitative or glamorous.”
Mr. Ayr called for action rather than
dejection when confronted with violence all around us. He said, “Let’s not be
frustrated, let’s do something about changing the system which we are all a
part of.”
A panel on building resources for indie
and experimental cinema spoke about the need to create an alternative model for
producing and distributing artistic cinema. All the four panelists had a shared
history, each having worked together on films like Oraalppokkam and
Ozhivudivasathe Kali in various capacities.
Prakash Bare (Actor & Producer) spoke
about the challenge of getting the audience to watch the films. “Once they’ve
watched the film, they are wowed. They say they didn’t know such films exist.”
The last session in the Knowledge series
saw the duo from Starlight Runner Entertainment, Jeff Gomez (Founder & CEO)
and Steele Filipek (Executive Editor) take the audience through the relatively
new field of transmedia which is all about leveraging the world of
possibilities inherent in a film to be taken on to other platforms, thus
helping build interest, franchisees and eventually revenue models. The duo
spoke about their experience with the immensely popular Pirates of the
Carribean franchisee and how they helped extend take the world and the
characters on to platforms like books, video games and theme parks.
The two of them, with the moderator Mr.
Rohan Sippy (Filmmaker & Producer) engaged in a conversation with filmmaker
Gitanjali Rao on how her film Bombay Rose (animation) could go transmedia and
leverage other platforms.
The
company has also consulted with Bahubali where they were involved from the very
early stages. Speaking over video from the US, Mr. Gomez said that, “It was
thrilling to see the war sequence from Bahubali go viral across the world. That
was due to the willingness of the creators of the film to build a transmedia
model.”
