NEW DELHI: Filmmakers in India and Canada are expected to benefit in pooling their creative, artistic, technical, financial and marketing resources for the co-production in the years to come.
This follows the signing of an India and Canada Audio-Visual Co-Production Agreement that will enable Indian and Canadian film producers to utilise a platform for collaboration on various facets of film making.
The agreement is expected to lead to the transparent funding of Film Production and will boost export of Indian Films into the Canadian Market.
The agreement is expected to deepen the engagement between the critical sectors of the film industries of both countries there by providing a new chapter of collaboration. The agreement was signed by Information and Broadcasting Ministry Secretary Bimal Julka and Canadian High Commissioner to India Stewart Beck.
The agreement will also lead to exchange of art and culture among the two countries and create goodwill and better understanding among the people of both the countries which will boost cultural ties between the two countries.
The agreement will provide an opportunity to create and showcase India’s ‘Soft Power’ and lead to employment generation among artistic, technical and non-technical human resources engaged in the film production including post-production and its marketing.
Since the agreement is expected to boost the utilisation of Indian locales for shooting, it will increase the visibility/prospects of India as a preferred film shooting destination across the globe and will lead to the inflow of Foreign Exchange into the country.
In the past, similar agreements have been signed with Italy and the United Kingdom in 2005, Germany and Brazil in 2007, France in 2010, New Zealand in 2011, and Poland and Spain in 2012.
The co-production agreements signed so far seek to achieve economic, cultural and diplomatic goals. For filmmakers, the key attraction of a treaty co-production is that it qualifies as a national production in each of the partner nations and can access benefits that are available to the local film and television industry in each country. Benefits accruing from such agreements include government financial assistance, tax concessions and inclusion in domestic television broadcast quotas.
India’s co-production agreements are unique for international producers as the country offers technically qualified film crew at reasonable rates, a large pool of talented actors and the multitude of shooting locations. The other benefits are that the co production is treated at par as a national film and is eligible for the National Film Awards and the Indian Panorama section of International Film Festival of India. Such films also get the opportunity to be released through the Indian distribution network, and hence co production opens up the Indian consumer market to the foreign producer.
