The French Minister for Culture Mr. Franck Riester recently came to Mumbai to interact with the audio-visual industry and explore cooperation opportunities in this domain. During the first leg of his programme, Mr. Riester interacted with some of the key representatives of the music industry for content creation, sharing and co-productions.
Then, at a business meet called Destination France specially organized to showcase what France has to offer as a film shooting destination for Indian and French industry professionals, Mr. Franck Riester provided key highlights, incentives and benefits that makes France an attractive proposition. He reiterated the commitment of the President of France and his entire government to strengthen Indo-French relationships and particularly that of the French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs and himself through the establishment of a dedicated commission for Indo-French film and images projects. This commission will be responsible to allow the full commitment of all French stakeholders in developing projects between France and India (shootings, coproduction, distribution) and act as a single window connect for the Indian stakeholders to ensure that all projects are realized as smoothly as possible.
Speakers included Minister Franck Riester – Ambassador, Emmanuel Lenain – Dominique Boutonnat, président of CNC (French national agency for cinema and moving images) – Stephan Bender interim CEO of Film France (national commission of films)
Indian guests at the round table included Redchillies Entertainment CEO Gaurav Verma, Telangana location manager Narravula Gopi Krishna, Dipti Jindal representing Nadiadwala grandsons production while at a lunch session, minister met up with Film Producer Sajid Naiadwala and Excel productions film writer Kassim Jagmagia.
With content industry in full bloom and digital media becoming more prominent, international partnerships have become imperative and hopefully this one will yield desirable outcome too.
Honorable Minister of Culture of France concluded his journey at Ubisoft Mumbai. His excellency was received and felicitated by Mr. Jean-Philippe Pieuchot, Managing Director, Ubisoft India Studios; and Ms. Marie-Sophie de Waubert, Vice President – Corporate Affairs, Ubisoft. Ubisoft is a french company which has had its presence in India for quite some time now.
During the second half of his programme in Mumbai, he met the Director of IIT Powai Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri and delivered a powerful lecture to a packed auditorium in IIT on ‘how the economics of culture is reshaping the world’. Among other powerful examples he gave that of the development of Smart Cities.
“The Smart Cities Mission is a significant opportunity to promote creative industries in India which, in turn, will lead to substantial growth in other sectors, such as tourism and hospitality. The Smart Cities Mission is meant to improve people’s living standards and develop clean and sustainable environment. A key ingredient to this is the access to art and cultural institutions which define the livability of a city. Hence arises the need to establish creative clusters/ art and cultural districts within Smart Cities that are designed to attract, retain and nurture the creative workforce that our cities need to succeed in the new Economy. France is already collaborating with the Indian government on smart city projects in Chandigarh, Nagpur and Pune among other cities,” shared he.
Connecting technology to art and culture, he went on to explain, “Today’s museums are increasingly high-tech, involving multimedia, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, audio-visuals to enhance viewer experience.”
Discussing the economics of France’s cultural and creative industries, he said that these industries account for 6,40,000 jobs and generate 91 billion euros worth of revenue, 32 billion euros worth of export and account for more than two per cent of the country’s economy.
It was a fruitful end to a day-long visit with meeting all the key actors that would be one more step forward to closer ties between India and France.