BC?s bid to host ?Bollywood?s Oscars? in Vancouver in 2013 could increase Indian film shoots – and capital – coming to B.C., according to Mel D?Souza, a Vancouver-based film producer with ethnic and business links to India.
D?Souza, owner and executive producer of Silo Entertainment Inc., said he?s likely one of the only Vancouverites to have produced a Bollywood hit (2003?s Boom) – a feat he pulled off during an eight-year stint living in India.
He added that he was ?the only one waving the India film flag? a few years ago when he sat on an Asian advisory panel for BC Film – now BC Film + Media.
D?Souza said B.C.?s recently announced plan to bid on the three-day 2013 International Indian Film Academy (IIFAA) awards could help raise India?s awareness of B.C. – and, more broadly, Canada. He said that while Indian film companies are increasingly filming in countries such as England and Australia, they tend to view Canada as being ?on the other side of the planet.?
?If [the awards] did come here, it might alleviate that distance thing that seems to be one of the hurdles to more Indian films coming to shoot in Canada,? he said. ?And I think it does allow for further linkages, further networking between that side and this side because it will bring in some of the biggest names and people involved in the industry to Vancouver as it did to Toronto this year.?
B.C. Film Commissioner Susan Croome said that few Indian filmmakers currently shoot in B.C. but that hosting the awards could help change that. And she said the payoff could be significant.
?[Indian film producers] are doing bigger, more expensive productions, and they do a tremendous amount of shows,? she said. ?It would be lovely to get a piece of that.?
For B.C.?s cash-strapped local film producers, D?Souza said building links with the Indian film industry could help them access a robust source of project financing.
?There?s just so much money in that market.?
D?Souza pointed out that he has tentative pre-sales agreements with Indian broadcasters for two film projects that Silo has in final development.
But D?Souza said that while hosting the IIFA awards is a good step for B.C., a one-off event won?t create B.C.-India film links overnight.
?You need to spend time; you have to have face-time in a market to prove that you?re really serious with it,? he said. ?One event happening in Vancouver does not prove that. It really is the Asian mindset of building relationship before any business is done.?
For example, D?Souza said the deals Silo has lined up with Indian broadcasters resulted from his contacts in India and the time he has invested there.
?All of those linkages and contacts have been playing a crucial part of what I?ve been doing with Silo.?
Canada and India have long discussed but have yet to sign a film co-production treaty. But D?Souza said he doesn?t think that completing such a treaty is the fastest way to advance film links between the countries – at least on the Indian end.
He said that while B.C.?s producers are keen on co-production treaties as a way to draw on tax credits in different jurisdictions, fast-moving Indian capital tends to view treaty requirements as new constraints and delays with few benefits.
More effective than a treaty, said D?Souza, will be relationship building. As an example, he pointed to a trade mission of Ontario film and television producers in India this month to build links in Bollywood in the wake of Toronto?s IIFA awards.
?That?s what it?s going to take,? D?Souza said. ?It?s going to take that sort of individual effort or combined effort, maybe a B.C.-led delegation focused on media heading over to India and spending some time [there].?
Premier Christy Clark announced the plan to bid on the 2013 IIFA Awards this month while she was in India on a trade mission.
The province estimated that the awards would attract 40,000 visitors – the same number Toronto drew when it hosted the awards this past summer at a cost of approximately $12 million. ?
