The Mighty Heart lesson for India at Cannes

By: Subhash K. Jha, IndiaFM
Friday, May 25, 2007
Though aiming to break through into the international arena in a big way Bollywood still seems to be lagging behind in terms of representation at prestigious film festivals and more importantly in generating interest, faith and confidence in foreign units to come and shoot in India.

A major spokesperson of the Hindi film industry who attended the Cannes film festival had a rather grim picture to portray of the scenario down there. "The Indian press was very badly organized and they were often seen trying to push without the necessary permission into various events organized for the international press. In fact, Indian media persons had a tough time getting into Preity Zinta's event for Chopard."

Worse was the buzz at Cannes about the treatment meted out to various film units from abroad who desire to shoot in India.

Says the Bollywood spokesperson, "The treatment meted out to the first unit of Deepa Mehta's Water and now to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt during the shooting of A Mighty Heart in Pune has left other foreign units' desire of shooting in India completely cold. Now, some filmmakers who were planning to shoot in India have decided against it. There's just too much red-tape and bureaucratic bungling and moral policing."

The buzz is that Mira Nair is planning to shift the location of her Mumbai-centric plot in her Amitabh Bachchan-Johnny Depp starrer Shantaram to another location outside India. Though Mira completely denies any change of plan, the feeling that India doesn't have A Mighty Heart for film units from outside India, is growing.

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