Mumbai: The 9th edition of NFDC Film Bazaar to be held from November 20-24, 2015 at Marriott Resort, Goa, focuses on making India a Filming friendly destination.
As part of NFDC’s objective to promote India as a destination for shooting films and thereby giving an impetus to both the film and tourism sectors of India, the Film Bazaar 2015 for the first time will be organizing Film Tourism workshops, Film Tourism Symposium and Filming in India sessions in the Knowledge Series apart from the Film Offices that were introduced last year.
Knowledge Series will have special sessions on ‘Filming In India’ at the Film Bazaar where renowned filmmakers, trendsetters will share their experiences of filming in the various states of India and how the State facilitated it for them. These include Anurag Basu talking about Chhattisgarh, Prakash Jha about Madhya Pradesh, Shoojit Sircar on Gujarat, Rohan Sippy on Maharashtra, Karthik Subbaraj on Tamil Nadu, Karan Malhotra on Daman and Surajit Bose on West Bengal.
The Film Tourism Symposium, presented by the Ministry of Tourism in association with the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and the National Film Development Corporation, will give a road map to the Film Facilitation Office, which is to be housed in the NFDC, as to the direction to be taken in the near future to make the permission of filming in India easier and therefore position India as an attractive destination to the international film community. The Symposium, which will go a long way in capitalizing on the economic potential of film tourism in the country as a whole and shall include sessions with the Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of I&B, Archaeological Survey of India, Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Railways.
Col. RajyavardhanRathore, the Honorable Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India will launch the logo of the Film Facilitation Office at the Film Bazaar, on November 21, 2015.
The Film Tourism Workshop is being held from November 18 to 20, 2015 and aims at exposing key government functionaries handling the area of work to the dynamics of promoting their regions as a filming destination. The sessions are conducted by International and Indian advisers covering various aspects of Film Tourism. Chhattisgarh Tourism, Madhya Pradesh Tourism, Gujarat Tourism and Punjab Tourism are participating in this workshop.
Film Offices were set up in 2014 with the aim of providing a platform to State / Country Tourism Boards and Country Film Commissions to promote their locations to the Indian and International film fraternity through structured one-on-one meetings organized by NFDC between the attending state officials and all the producers and directors participating in the Film Bazaar.
This year the states that will be participating are Chhattisgarh Tourism, Madhya Pradesh Tourism, Gujarat Tourism, Maharashtra – Film City, West Bengal Tourism, Tamil Nadu Tourism, Daman & Diu Tourism and Puducherry. Incredible India will also set up their office at the Film Offices this year.
NFDC India’s Managing Director, Nina Lath Gupta says, “Tourism is one of the highlights of our country and we think it’s important to showcase this to the filmmakers in India and internationally as well. We will also address key concerns filmmakers face mainly for outdoor location shoots. This year, we have initiated these segments in the Bazaar to specially focus on travel and promote India as a film friendly destination.”
