Film Bazaar, organized by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), is all set to be held from the November 20 to 24, 2015 at the Marriott Resort, Goa. A full-fledged film market and the only one of its kind in South Asia, Film Bazaar is a converging point for buyers and sellers of film rights from all over the world.

First held in 2007 with a focus on discovering, supporting and showcasing South Asian content and talent in the spheres of filmmaking, production and distribution, the Film Bazaar has evolved into South Asia’s truly global film market. Having witnessed increased South Asian and international participation with every edition, this year it is bound to be bigger, especially with new additions in various sections and reformations.

Highlights of Film Bazaar 2015:

Film Bazaar 2015 to make 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, for the first time; Film Bazaar will conduct a Film Tourism Workshops, which will be held on November 18 to 20, 2015. The workshop aims at exposing key government functionaries handling the area of work to the dynamics of promoting their regions as a filming destination. The sessions will be conducted by International and Indian advisers covering various aspects of Film Tourism. Chhattisgarh Tourism, Madhya Pradesh Tourism, Gujarat Tourism and Andhra Pradesh Tourism will also be participating in this workshop.

The Film Offices were set up in 2014 with the aims to provide a platform to state governments 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 following States will be participating; Chhattisgarh Tourism, Madhya Pradesh Tourism, Gujarat Tourism, Maharashtra – Film City, West Bengal Tourism, Tamil Nadu Tourism, Daman & Diu Tourism and Puducherry.

Presented by the Ministry of Tourism in association with the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and the National Film Development Corporation, the Film Tourism Symposium 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, Archeological Survey of India, Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Railways.

Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore, the Hon’ble 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.

NFDC Knowledge Series

As part of the NFDC Knowledge Series at the Film Bazaar, renowned filmmakers, trendsetterswill share their experiences in Filming in the various states of India and how the State facilitated it for them. Few of them are Anurag Basu on Chhattisgarh, Shoojit Sircar on Gujarat, Rohan Sippy on Maharashtra and Prakash Jha on Madhya Pradesh.

–       NFDC Knowledge Series sessions are the most looked forward to at the Film Bazaar. Below are some interesting sessions which are a part of the bazaar.

–       A R RAHMAN: Films and  Beyond ; moderated by: Nasreen Munni Kabir

–       Kabir Khan – Traversing across Real Stories to Features with Stars; moderated by Rajeev Masand

–       Vikas Bahl on Choosing the Story and Positioning It Right

–       Children’s films and New markets; Presentations and Q&A by: Rajiv Chilakalapudi, Creator, ChotaBheem& Annette Brejner  Head of the Financing Forum For Kids content, moderated by: Namrata Joshi (National Cinema Editor, The Hindu)

–       Google-YouTube – Emergence of Content Destinations; presentation and Q&A by: SatyaRaghavan- Head of Content Operations YouTube – India

–     New Voices: Pushing Boundaries in Creation, Marketing and Monetization; guests: Amit Masurkar – Suleimani Keeda, Bardroy Barretto, Karthik Subbaraj – Pizza / Jigarthanda; moderated by: Anurag Kashyap

–       CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGNS- Telling an engaging story; Presentations and Q&A by Ravi Shankar, Filmmaker –  Punyakoti (Sanskrit Animated), Bhaskar Hazarika, Filmmaker, Kothanodi (Assamese feature), Ruchi Bhimani, Producer, Proposition for a Revolution (Documentary); moderated by: Vanita Kohli

This year, the Investor Pitch will consist of three pitching sessions that would provide investors’ a platform to connect with film projects from different genres and in various stages of completion. The Three Investor Pitches include 19 Co-Production Market projects selected across genres with a special focus on South Asian stories from across the globe, 16 Screenwriters’ Lab scripts with focus on Romance and Children’s stories, these projects mentored by National and International industry experts – Marcel Beaulieu, Alfredo Covelli, Urmi Juvekar, Rasmus Horskjaer, Tamara Bos, Mieke de Jong, Habib Faisal, Sharat Katariya and Girish Joshi and 18 Film Bazaar Recommends from the Viewing Room curated by Deepti DCunha.

This is the third edition of Producers’ Lab, which started in 2013 with 27 participants, 17 participants in 2014 and this year with highest number of 37 participants from 5 different countries. The Producers’ Lab has been set up to help emerging producers cultivate a sense of vision to maintain a fine balance between the creative and financial aspects of filmmaking. The sessions are conducted by key industry experts and professionals from the domestic and international domain.This year NFDC has introduced a pitching session for the participants on the last day of the lab, where they will be pitching their individual projects to a panel of mentors. Moreover, this year NFDC is working out the programming of Producers’ Lab in such a way that it is more integrated with other programs at Film Bazaar like Knowledge Series, Co-Production Market and ScreenWriters’ Lab, which will help the participants gather a more broader range of knowledge and skills and have an overall better experience. This year the Producers’ Lab will have mentors like Marco Mueller, Olivia Stewart and Anil Thadani.

Labs at Film Bazaar 2015

Another first at Film Bazaar this year is the newly introduced Children’s Screenwriters’ Lab as a part of the Screenwriters’ Lab with the Romance Screenwriters’ Lab introduced last year. This year, six projects are selected in each lab, these 18 screenwriters will be at the Bazaar this year and will get an opportunity to participate in an Investors Pitch and pitch their projects to the invited Indian and International buyers/producers/directors.

Films/Projects to look forward at Film Bazaar

This year nineteen projects have been selected to participate in the Co-production Market, including one invited project from IFP (Independent Filmmaker Project).

Bombay Rose directed by Gitanjali Rao, Manto directed by Nandita Das, Agra directed by Kanu Behl(of Titli), Pirates by directed Ritesh Raj More and produced by Ritesh Batra, A Goat’s Life directed by Fahad Mustafa (of Katiyabaaz fame), Newton directed by Amit V Masurkar (of SulemaniKeeda fame) and produced by Manish Mundhra, Drishyam Films, Memories and My Mother (Bengali) directed by Aditya Vikram Sengupta(Labour of Love fame).

Film Bazaar announced the 11 projects under its Work in Progress (WIP) Labsix in the WIP Lab- Fiction and five in the WIP Lab- Documentary. Shankar Raman’s Gurgaon and Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha in WIP Lab- Fiction and Avani Rai’s Raghu Rai: An Unframed Portrait and Rahul Jain’s Machines in WIP Lab- Documentary are few of the projects in the WIP Labs this year.

The Film Bazaar Recommends 32 film projects from the Viewing Room that include 22 features and 10 documentaries, which one can look forward to in 2016. There were 156 submissions to the Viewing Room this year including features, shorts and documentaries. Q’s Ludo, Haobam Paban Kumar’s Nongmei (Gun) and Nicholas Kharkongor’s Mantra are few of them.

In 2014, a total of 111 Indian films were presented in the Viewing Room. Whereas this year, 156 films in 29 different Indian languages will be presented in fiction and documentaries section which is an indication of almost 50% increase in Indian films in the Viewing Room.

The Industry Screenings introduced in 2010, is a platform available to filmmakers to showcase their films to a select audience of sales agents, distributors, producers and festival programmers. 31 films will be screened in three digital theatres at the Film Bazaar venue to be held at the Goa Marriott the official venue from 21-24 November, 2015. Some of the acclaimed films that have been screened in the earlier editions are Ankhon Dekhi, Sulemani Keeda, Fandry, Elizabeth Ekadashi, Katiyabaaz and Qissa: The Tale of a Lonely Ghost.

The number of international buyers has also increased this year. Remi Burah – Arte France (Biggest TV companies in Europe), Angel An – Samuel Goldwyn, Nancy Gerstman – Zeitgeist Films (Distributors of Court), Nasreen Kabir – Hyphen Films are few of them. Michael Werner – Fortissimo, Scott Veltri – Magnolia Pictures, Anjay Nagpal – Focus Features and Keiko Funato – Alpha Violet are few of the distributors and sales agents attending the Film Bazaar this year.

According to Nina Lath Gupta, Managing Director, NFDC India, “It’s a great feeling to see Film Bazaar grow to become such an important annual event, not just in India but internationally as well. With NFDC connecting Indian and International film fraternities, Film Bazaar will again discover and significantly support upcoming talent from all over. We are really excited with various new segments introduced this year and looking forward to address key concerns of the world film community in the dynamic domains of film development, production, and distribution.”