Copycat no more: Foreign movies get to ‘inspire’ Bollywood

Representational pic

By Faizal Khan

Bollywood has been presented with an opportunity to remake some of the biggest foreign language box-office hits in recent years, in a move initiated at the Cannes Film Festival in May this year.
According to a proposal from French film promotion body Unifrance, the Mumbai Film Festival will host India’s first remakes market in October, with the participation of the French film industry. Germany is also expected to jump in the fray with its own latest celluloid successes. The Mumbai market for remaking foreign films in the country will begin a long-awaited process for transforming India’s much-maligned image of an industry that feeds on blockbusters in foreign languages.
“We are going to participate in a ‘market for remakes’ at the upcoming Mumbai Film Festival,” Unifrance executive director Isabelle Giordano told this correspondent on phone from Paris. “The ‘remakes market’ in India is the brainchild of Unifrance,” confirms Mumbai festival director Srinivasan Narayanan, who held a meeting with Giordano at the Cannes festival. “The market will be for three days and we will screen nine to twelve select films for potential buyers,” adds Narayanan, who will be inviting film-makers and producers from the southern and eastern film industries, besides Bollywood. The Mumbai Film Festival will be held from October 14 to 21 this year.