Hyderabad to host international film festival

A total of 105 films from different Indian languages will be screened to more than 10,000 people

Hyderabad: Come August 2016, Hyderabad is set to host the second edition of All Lights India International Film Festival (ALIFF) & Indywood Film Market (IFM), one-of-its-kind of event to happen in the twin cities in recent times.

Touted to be South Asia’s biggest event to be held at Ramoji Film City, 105 films from different Indian languages are to be screened with an expected attendance of more than 10,000 people. The inaugural one was held at Kochi in November last. “The humongous universal hit of 2015, the Telugu blockbuster Baahubali: The Beginning, seems to have set off new tidings for the film industry in Hyderabad.

One 4K resolution print, the only one in India was released in Ariesplex theatre in Thiruvananthapuram. It broke all records to collect Rs 3 crore, an all-India record. Dubbed into Mandarin, the film collected Rs 400 crore and it was shown over 5,000 screens. With the second version to be released in 2016, it was ideal for us to zoom in on this city,” said Sohan Roy S K, founder director, ALIFF & IFM on Tuesday.

It is by now a well known fact that the average revenue generated per viewer is the highest from Telugu cinema, much higher than the national average. Hence, the organisers have also wooed the visiting delegates for a two-week film tourism programme beginning at RFC, the world’s biggest film city and moving across to other key film centres of India like Mumbai, Chennai and Kochi.

During the festival proposed to be held between August 17-21, active participation from global film and media fraternity including producers, directors, exhibitors, buyers, sales agents, stuntmen and global film equipment manufacturers among others have been anticipated. In terms of numbers, the organisers expect the event to attract participants from more than 70 countries and expect 1,500 film submissions to be selected for screening.

Roy said, “We see tremendous opportunities for Indian film industry due to the variety and depth the industry offers. Indywood will enable the Indian film industry to bridge the existing gap and help Indian films to be made for a global audience.” Other than this, a multi- level action plan to involve the government agencies, who are key players in the entire scheme of things, is also on the anvil.

Technology upgrading with the projected addition of 10,000 multiplex screens in the next five years is expected to cost a whopping Rs 67,000 crores. This is proposed to be funded by a consortium of 2,000 companies under the NRI Producers’ Association, headed by Sohan Roy himself. Indywood also proposes to actualise the ‘Make in India’ potential over the next half-a-decade.

“Presently, as per our study, 95 per cent of the earnings of the industry goes to service the equipment and allied facilities that are made available to the viewer in multiplexes by foreign companies. We aim to indigenise this gradually,” said Roy.