Orderly growth of film industry

Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, Shri Raghu Menon today assured the film industry stake holders that the Government of India would make all efforts to facilitate healthy and orderly growth of the film industry and the media industry as a whole. Shri Menon was delivering the keynote address at the ‘India-The Big Picture’ Conference today at Panaji, organized in participation with the Confederation of Indian Industry on the sidelines of the 40th International Film Festival at Goa.

The Secretary, Shri Raghu Menon noted that issues discussed at the daylong Conference focusing on the subject ‘Strengthening Domestic Film Business & IPR’ are bound to have long term bearings for the future. He said that the media sector has had a robust growth of 13 per cent increase annually and a Compounded Annual Growth Rate of 13 per cent but ‘big is good but not enough’ he added. He said the film industry needs a candid introspection on problems faced by the industry to arrive at appropriate remedial measures and course correction. The Secretary advised that it is no use if the sector becomes unprofessional and commercially unviable. He said a reality check is important and the producers need to take a hard look at their talent and project cost. He acknowledged that piracy is the biggest threat to the entertainment industry and the Government on its part is taking steps for effective enforcement of the laws.

Shri Raghu Menon informed that the piracy issue would also be discussed in detail at the forthcoming Conference of the State Information Ministers’ scheduled in Delhi on December 05, 2009. The Secretary stated that while the Government will take punitive action, the entertainment industry itself should take preventive action to create awareness among the people at large to boycott pirated products. Shri Menon also complimented the stake holders noting that India has emerged as a favourite service destination for animation, gaming and visual effects. He said while the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has the resources to set up the Centre for Excellence in animation, gaming and visual effects, the stakeholders should feel free to contribute with the necessary expertise to set up the Centre.

Delivering the special address Shri Manmohan Shetty, President, The Film & Television Producers Guild of India Ltd. pointed out that media entrepreneurs need to re-look the multiplex ticket-costing, talent-signing amounts to ensure control in prices for affordable expenditure on cinema-viewing for an average Indian family. Shri Bobby Bedi, MD, Kaleidoscope Entertainment & Member of Jury, IFFI Goa also in his address highlighted the need to control the Frankenstein growth of multiplexes and big production houses to ensure that film making is not rendered economically unviable and in turn encouraging the average viewer to watch pirated CDs of films instead.

The Chief Minister of Goa, Shri Digambar V. Kamat in his inaugural address urged the Conference deliberations to work out a road map to control piracy as also to promote film culture. He invited the film industry to explore the tremendous potential of growth of entertainment industry in Goa. On his part he assured all support from the Government of Goa.

The daylong Conference also deliberated on issues of film financing, global reach of Indian cinema as also the pathways for global alliances to see India as the emerging service destination.