The Film Bazaar, backed by the NFDC, is a ray of hope for budding filmmakers as they strive hard to put their best foot forward to impress collaborators from across the world. They also want their projects discovered the way some of the best Indian films such as Lunch Box, Chauthi Koot, Titli, Court and Miss Lovely were found by the backers.
The Co-Production Market (CPM) saw 14 projects from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, France, Nepal, Singapore and USA in languages like Hindi, English, Bengali, Malayalam, Assamese, Nepali, Dzongkha (Bhutanese) and Gujarati.
Started in 2007, the idea behind the Film Bazaar is to equip the Indian filmmakers with a good understanding of the market, something on the lines of the filmmaker-collaborator sessions at relatively bigger film festivals like Locarno and Cannes.
Explaining the process, event programmer Deepti DCunha said, “It’s a film market, there can't be any rejection. Whoever applied and completed the process should be there at the market. We have 213 films registered and there has to be certain markers of quality. What we look out is for directorial talents and projects with really good production values.”
She added, “See, the curation also looks at showing the diversity in terms of content. We have programmed films in past language like Rajbanshi and Maithili for smaller regions. It is our attempt to reach out to the filmmakers from different areas of India who are making films without any support. We want them to come here and recognise this as a market and get connected to the industry at large.”
Leena Khobragade, Director, Film Bazaar, said, "It's tailored to the requirements of new, independent filmmakers. We’ve continuously evolved and made additions. Gitanjali Rao’s Bombay Rose, the festival favourite this year, has been through every phase of mentorship at Film Bazaar. In fact, just yesterday Ridham Janve’s The Gold Laden Sheep and the Sacred Mountain won the prestigious Best Young Cinema award at Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2019."
Filmmakers such as Vishal Bhardwaj, Soundarya Rajinikanth, Prasoon Joshi, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Meghna Gulzar and actor Adil Hussain are among the ones headlining different events at Film Bazaar this year. A new segment focussed on skill development, a re-jigged Producer's Workshop and the Work In Progress Lab will see diverse projects.
While 5 films in the WIP lab and 14 films in the Co-Production Market will be pitched, the Film Bazaar Recommends section will feature 26 movies. Together these make 213 films in more than 30 languages, including Gondi, Bodo, Gojri, and Galo.
There are 20 projects from USA, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Taiwan and India selected to participate in the workshop.
For the first time WIP Lab projects participants are getting a chance to present their films to potential investors, producers, sales agents, distributors, festival programmers in an open pitching session at the venue.
With these new adjustments, Film Bazaar might achieve what it set out to.
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