India’s Film Bazaar Reveals Market Winners, Deals

Naman Ramachandran
·3 min read

Indian project market Film Bazaar has revealed the winners and deals that took place during the event.

Prasad Labs gives out one winning award and three participation awards annually for works in progress. The winner, “Waste Side Story” by Supriyo Sen, gets a free 4K digital intermediate (DI) for 50 hours. Participants, who get a 50% discount for 50 hours of DI, are “The Rhythm of Dammam,” by Jayan Cherian, “Lasya” by Shweta Bajaj and “A Puppet’s Tale” by Sumon Mukhopadhyay. Prasad Labs also gives one winner to the Film Bazaar Recommends pick from the market’s viewing room. This year’s winner is “The Exile” by Samman Roy.

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At the MovieBuff Awards by Qube Wire, each winner gets INR300,000 ($3,600) worth of sponsorship for trailer promotion at Qube Cinema theaters across the world, along with two versions of DCI/DCP free for a movie, and a subscription to the Qube Wire account worth $500. The winners are “Anu” by Pulkit Arora, “Gopi” by Nishanth Gurumurthy and “Roti Kun Banoosi” (Who Will Bake the Bread”) by Chandan Singh Shikawhat.

The Screenwriters Lab winners are Rohan K. Mehta for “Absent,” Avinash Arun for “Boomerang,” Diwa Shah for “Chab” (“Refuge”), Neha Negi for “Chhawni” (“Cantt”), Vatsala Patel for “Daant” (“Bite”), Sanju Kadu for “Khosla” (“The Cocoon”), Beeswa Ranjan Pradhan for “Pramana Patra” (“Certificate”) and Savita Singh for “Qissa-e-Circus” (“A Ballad of the Circus”).

The Book to Box Office jury pitch winners are Tejaswini Apte-Rahm for “The Secret of More,” Balakartiga M for “Kadamba Vana Priya,” Vishak Shakti for “Mango People in a Banana Republic (Autobiography of a Bhogi),” Saurabh Dev for “Your Ally, Your Foe,” Sparsh Srivastava for “Madhur Mishra” and Vijay Sharma for “Rocky and Arjun – Eventual Days With My Mountain Dog.”

The groundwork for several deals was laid at the market. These included producer Jitendra Mishra picking up “Habaspuri Weaving: The Second and Last Death?”; producer Raghav Khanna making an offer for “Where Do We Go From Here”; Lotus Visual Productions offering to pick up two LGBTQ projects “Laksya” and “The Cocoon,” with the latter also adding Avinash Arun as a producer; and Lionsgate India making an offer to “Zende, the Supercop” that was part of the market screenings.

Film Bazaar, which is operated by India’s National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), ran Nov. 20-24. The closing ceremony was attended by Neerja Shankar, additional secretary at India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Prithul Kumar, joint secretary, films, and MD, NFDC, filmmakers Shoojit Sircar, Krishna D.K. and Raj Nidimoru, Film Bazaar head of programming Jitin Hingorani and Film Bazaar artistic director Leena Narzary. Leena Khobragade, the previous artistic director, has moved to the role of advisor to the MD.

The market saw the participation of more than 1,250 delegates this year. Shankar said: “If we want Indian content to go across borders, to all over the world, then we should also welcome international content to India so that we open our minds to the best in global cinema.”

Kumar added: “Collaboration is the key to filmmaking and I am glad that a bazaar like this facilitates those collaborations. We had 36 countries represented this year, with four of them putting up their pavilion at Film Bazaar. There were 498 meetings in the co-production lab where we had 32 projects this year. Viewing room has been a success with 68 delegates watching content of more than 25 hours there.”

Film Bazaar runs concurrently with the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. Atul Lotlikar’s “Odh,” a short film on the receding beach lines of Goa, won the best film award at the festival’s 75 Creative Minds of Tomorrow competition.

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