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July 22, 2011
Bollywood scouts Israel
Indian filmmakers look towards a fresh market.
ARIEH O’SULLIVAN THE MEDIA LINE
Could Israel be the next setting for one of Bollywood’s iconic and melodramatic film musicals?
“For our song-and-dance sequences, we generally do our filming somewhere outside of the country, and we’ve almost exhausted most of the locations around the world,” chuckled Vinod Kumar, one of India’s prominent film producers. “We felt this [Israel] is a location nobody’s used yet, so we’ve come out here to actually figure out what are the possibilities.”
Kumar and more than half a dozen top Bollywood film moguls recently wrapped up a visit to the country, where they scouted location sites and explored the possibilities of joint ventures.
While some spoke of scripts in the making and cooperation with local animation companies, others were looking for a synergy that would take India’s mammoth $20.4 billion film and television industry to new niches.
“Indian filmmakers do not necessarily need funding from other countries like Israel,” director and screenwriter Abhishek Sharma told this reporter. “The co-production should be more in the region of getting good stories. Because this region is a gold mine for great script ideas and backgrounds, so that is what I am more interested in as a filmmaker.”
The group was brought to Israel for five days earlier this month under the auspices of Project Interchange, an educational institute of American Jewish Committee (AJC) seeking to affect policy and advocate on Jewish issues worldwide.
“They are the pillars of the Indian film industry,” said Priya Tandon, AJC’s representative in India. “They are recognized in their county and [have] co-produced films with different countries. They can make things happen.”
Sundeep “Bobby” Bedi, veteran producer and founder of Kaleidoscope Studios, didn’t think it was at all strange to be brought to Israel by AJC.
“Let’s face it; the Jews are a media power base, not in India, but definitely in the U.S. and the rest of the world. And, as a power base, I suppose they have a constituency and, as a constituency, they have a right to engage,” he explained.
“I see a scope for the two of us [Israel and India] doing business with the rest of the world as a client,” he continued. “We are both very solidly technology-driven countries and cinema is going to the technological route in a big way, so animation, visual effects and software-driven filmmaking is certainly an area worth exploring.”
The group visited the headquarters of Jerusalem Venture Partners (JPV), which is also home to Israel’s biggest animation studio, and were hosted by their Israeli counterparts.
Kumar, who is managing director at Nirvana Motion Pictures and secretary-general and founding member of the Film Foundation of India, said he was struck by Israel’s diversity and character during their tour of the country. “People are definitely argumentative, but at the same time very straightforward and a pleasure to work with,” he said. “There are all sorts of scripts going through your head and you think, ‘OK, maybe I could do this here.’ For me, personally, I would like to be able to look at Israel, to make a film with a local producer here, which we could then take to world markets.”
Kumar’s film Gangor premièred in Israel at the Jerusalem International Film Festival. The film, which tells the story of mass rape in India’s poor rural districts, is an example of a joint India-Italian production and could serve as a model for Israel.
Film-goers filled the cinema for the showing, reflecting a popularity for Indian cinema that stretches back decades. In the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, a large chunk of the movies shown in Israeli cinemas were in Hindi, Arabic and Turkish, especially in towns whose residents originated in India and the Middle East.
Today, Israel still has a following for Indian entertainment, with two cable television stations – one for movies and one for soap operas – broadcast in the country. That said, “Israel by itself is not a market,” Bedi remarked. “I mean, there are 700,000 people, excuse me, seven million people. By the time you sort of dissect them into the movie-going audience, it is smaller than a small Indian city.”
“Yes, but with Israel and India, that’s one-seventh of the world,” this reporter remarked.
“Yeah, but without Israel, India is still one-seventh of the world,” he replied.
Nevertheless, the group was keenly aware of the recent international success of Israeli films such as Lebanon, Waltz with Bashir and Ajami.
Sharma, whose political satire on the search for Osama bin Laden was a huge Indian success, said he saw opportunities for co-production for universal markets.
“We have a huge market overseas, but that is a specific market that sees Bollywood films. But Israel has good insight into the Western world,” Sharma said. “We can merge the two and make projects which are both East and West and that would be a great thing.”
As to cinematic content, Sharma said he believes that political films from Israel are as passé as love stories are in India.
“Just like love stories have been done to death in Bollywood, I think politics have been done to death as far as Israel is concerned. I think you should look beyond. There is so much.”
AJC’s Tandon said the chemistry with Israel’s film industry was good and time will tell if the visit was a success. “I think that in the coming months you will hear of announcements of common productions,” she said.
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