By Iain Blair

Britain and India have been closely linked ever since the Empire days, and it continues. The latest merger is the UK/Indian film industries. A Brit producer friend – whose son is a DP and who last year married an Indian girl (whom he met at film school in London) -told me that a big deal was afoot while I was in London last month. Now comes word that UK and Indian filmmakers gathered at a top level summit in London recently to explore how they can work more closely together to benefit the industries in both countries.

The event was extremely timely given that the new UK India co-production treaty has just come into force and Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, which shot in India with a largely Indian crew, will close the BFI London Film Festival next week.  The film which won the People’s Choice award at the Toronto International Film festival has fuelled excitement about the type of collaborations that the UK and India can make together – which makes perfect sense, as the Indian film industry makes more than 1,000 films a year and the international market for Indian film billed $25.8 billion in 2006.

Actors and directors are being wooed by media giants aware of their bankability overseas and the international film business is courting the country’s filmmakers and studios as important partners.  Only recently, Spielberg’s Dreamworks signed a $550 million deal with Reliance Entertainment.  The new UK India co-production treaty which has recently come into force will help British filmmakers to break into this expanding market. As my friend noted, the UK film industry’s relationship with India goes back decades and in the past 15 years the bond has been strengthened with Indian filmmakers choosing the UK as a production destination. In turn, Indian films and Bollywood films in particular have struck a chord with British audiences.  Hindi films are the most common foreign language films played in UK cinemas and accounted for 52 releases last year, or 10 percent.  Pretty impressive growth!

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