India at Cannes 2021 is organised by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt of India in association with FICCI. This session, moderated by Mr. Vikramjit Roy, Head, FFO, is about the experiences of filmmakers with co-productions and how institutions are promoting co-productions, and also understand the nuances of stitching together international co-productions.
Ms. Dhanpreet Kaur, Director (Films) and MD, NFDC said that the long-awaited incentives for international productions shooting in India are on the verge of being finalized.
“NFDC has a very close and active coordination with Cannes Film Market. This year, NFDC has collaborated with Cannes on seven co-production projects and we are hopeful that these co-production projects will open up new opportunities for co-productions with international producers and storytellers,” she added.
On the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Simon Perry, Best Practice Exchange (BPX) Initiative under ACE Producers Network Europe, said, “The pandemic wiped out international co-production for really quite some time because of the extremely territorialized nature of funding nowadays.”
Mr. Neil Peplow, Director of Industry & International Affairs at British Film Institute (BFI), Peplow discussed the International Co-production strand of the fund, which can allocate a non-repayable grant of up to £300,000 ($413,000) per project. It is targeted at minority feature film co-productions in any language, including Indian languages, and any genre, which are co-produced with international partners, as well as minority or majority television co-productions in the animation and documentary genres only, in any language, which are co-produced with international partners.
The strand is open to experienced independent U.K. producers whose project must have raised at least 60% of the overall finance, and which needs to secure, or have already secured, at least one other source of U.K. funding.
Mr Peplow further said that the fund has flexibility built in in order to take opportunities where they exist. It is currently looking at projects and welcomes Indian “minority” projects on a reciprocity basis with the understanding that projects with majority funding from India will also take place. A co-production treaty between the U.K. and India has been in place since 2008.
For more insights on the matter, view the video above.