India, China to ink film production pact during Xi Jinping's visit

BEIJING: Bollywood, which has captured the imagination of people of different cultures around the world, has its task cut out in film diplomacy with India's largest neighbour, where centuries-old cultural familiarities have failed to build confidence.

A solution to the boundary dispute may have eluded China and India but both nations are trying hard to build trust by popularising each other's movies. A big step towards this will be taken when the two sides sign an agreement for joint film co-production during President Xi Jinping's visit to India from September 17-19 that is being billed as trust building exercise under the new government in Delhi.
"Both have huge film industries and these industries will be linked soon following the pact," the Director-General of Film Bureau of China, Zhang Hongsen, told a select group of journalists at his office in Beijing on Wednesday. He said that China and Indian film industry were developing a good relationship. China will be partner country at the Indian International Film Festival in Goa this November, Zhang said.

He will travel to Delhi along with China's Information Minister to ink the pact. Besides trade and investments, both countries are looking to use culture to engage with each other, not withstanding language barriers. Aamir Khan-starrer, Three Idiots, was a huge success in China as its dubbed version was screened in many theatres. Dhoom 3 too caught the imagination of the people of China, who have not seen many Hindi movies.

Very few Indian movies have so far been shot in China and viceversa. But this can change soon following the co-production pact. The pact, which will be an umbrella agreement, will also involve other audio visual cooperation between the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and its Chinese counterpart. China's film industry produces around 700 films per year.

Nearly 10 per cent of it are co-produced with foreign countries. Chinese films made $3.6 billion box-office receipts last year. It was just $100 million 10 years ago. There are 22,000 digital screens across China out of which 90 per cent are 3d screens. There are also 200 IMAX screens and 150 giant screens (20mX30m) Zhang said Chinese directors were now choosing India as locations. Two Chinese movies in recent times were shot there. Indian directors can also look to China as locations, he said.