Global Flicks: Lack Of Funding and Distribution In Indian Cinema Brought To Light
Ketan Mehta - Hindustan Times
Asia: The Indian documentary filmmaking industry has been booming globally, yet it is having trouble receiving funding locally. However, Indian documentarists continue to turn heads around the world. In 2022, Kartiki Gonsalves’ The Elephant Whisperers won the documentary short Oscar. In 2024 Nishtha Jain won the top international prize at Hot Docs for Farming the Revolution and While We Watched, winning the Peabody award for documentary. These are just two of the many accolades earned by Indian documentary filmmakers. This year, the Indian documentary, short fiction, and animation-focused Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) is launching the inaugural Doc Film Bazaar project, providing many opportunities in the Indian documentary arena. Miriam Chandy Menacherry, whose From the Shadows is at MIFF’s national competition this year, says that fiction producers and companies are now looking into financing documentaries. She is noticing more and more young filmmakers “embracing documentaries as their chosen form of storytelling.” The main challenge in the sector, which was discussed at MIFF, is a lack of local funding and distribution. Indian documentaries do not receive domestic support and must rely on international funds, which often favor urban, English-speaking creators. On the distribution end, there are little to no sales agents, television channels, or festivals offering screening fees. Most streaming platforms “shy away” from Indian documentaries, especially political ones. At the seminar, filmmakers spoke out and said that the whole industry must be restructured to fix this issue. According to Jain, documentaries do not have a “paying audience,” so these filmmakers are in pursuit of building their audience in schools and colleges. Their main goal is for the documentaries to reach local audiences and establish community roots.
“Until Indian docs are supported by funding from India, the growth of the sector will lag,” says Indo-Canadian documentary producer Mel D’Souza (Finding Freedom). “The other challenge, as of just a few weeks ago, was that there was a lot of censorship playing a part in what stories could be told freely and boldly in some cases.”
Ketan Mehta, known for founding Cosmos-Maya, the animation company that played the Nickelodeon show Motu Patlu, agreed on the lack of local-specific Indian content. He said global companies who operate television channels in India attempt to make local-specific content, but it fails to resonate with its target audience. Mehta spoke at MIFF and hosted a lively debate on animation. The discussion featured some of the top Iranian and Indian names in the business. The filmmaker agreed that India’s overflowing creativity and talent is limited by the lack of funding and distribution. Locally-produced animation movies often struggle at the Indian box office.
“I feel that we have so much talent here. We just need the right capital, and we need the right platform. And then, I feel, the sky’s the limit for us,” said producer and actor Jackky Bhagnani.
Iconic Chinese director Zhang Yimou is set to direct his first sci-fi film. It will be an adaptation of the 2008 novel The Three-Body Problem. The novel is the first part of a trilogy written by Chinese author Liu Cixin. Within China, the book has been adapted as an animated series, a live-action television series, and a radio drama. The book has been translated into over 30 languages. In 2024, Netflix released the television series 3-Body Problem, a big-budget English-language version adapted by Game of Thrones duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Netflix has since announced a second season of its show. Zhang is one of China’s most successful directors and his movies have grossed more than $1 billion. In the past few years, Zhang has picked up numerous lifetime achievement awards for his major career successes.
Kitano Takeshi, one of the biggest names in Japanese cinema, is directing a movie for Amazon MGM Studios. The film’s title has not yet been released. Amazon announced Takeshi would also be starring in the film.
Alice Diop - JB Lacroix
Europe: The Nouvelles Vagues Film Festival, which ran from June 18 - 23 this year, had big names such as Matt Dillon, Alice Diop, and Karle Sofia Gascon. The festival was launched last year with the support of Chanel. The event invites both established and emerging talents in cinema to share “the expansive vision of youth.” At the festival, there is a competition dedicated to young adult stories overseen by a jury all under the age of 35. The eight-film competition also hosts premieres of several French films. As part of Chanel’s partnership with the festival, the winners’ trophies were designed by students at the École Boulle and made by the Parurier Desrues. Karla Sofia Gascón (Emilia Pérez) was this year’s guest.
“The idea is to give a voice to young people and to listen to their views on cinema,” says programming director Lili Hinstin. “The question of who selects and awards films is almost political in nature, so we’ve put together an intergenerational selection committee that spans different cultural and social backgrounds in order to create greater conditions of openness. Programming and screening films does place you in a position of power, so then, who takes that place?”
Secouya Studios has launched a new European Sales and Global Co-Proudction Divison. Ex-Sony Pictures Entertainment senior executive Brendan Fitzgerald will be the CEO. The Division’s first director will be María García-Castrillón, who has been named its Head of International Co-Productions. The new division launch comes as the television industry is turning to co-production to cut costs and retain IP ownership.
Motel Destino
Latin America: Karim Aïnouz’s new thriller Motel Destino premiered in the Official Selection and received a 14-minute standing ovation at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Its distributor, The Match Factory, has closed major international deals for the film, securing key territories such as Germany, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Taiwan, and more. Negotiations for additional territories are underway. The film will premiere to the public in Brazil on Aug. 22. The film is set in neon-hued Motel Destino, a sex hotel on the coast of Brazil. It is run by Elias and his young wife Dayana. 21-year-old Heraldo, on the run after a hit gone wrong, disrupts the order of the motel. The film stars Iago Xavier, Nataly Rocha, and Fabio Assunção.
Brazil’s Boutique Filmes has set out to produce Seven Women, an adaptation of Brazilian Letícia Wierzchowski’s novel. The book was later made into a television show, which was one of the biggest hits in Brazilian TV history: A Casa das Sete Mulheres, sold to over 80 countries. Boutique Filmes produced Netflix’s first non-English and Brazilian series, 3%, which ran for four seasons. The film will be co-produced with Portugal’s SPi. Boutique Filmes is also co-producing a comedy film named How To Burn Down Your House with SPi. Because it is co-producing with Portugal, Boutique can “exchange expertise,” such as Portugal’s long traditional period costume dramas, according to producer Tiago Mello.
