In a film landscape virtually devoid of any international collaborations, Film Bazaar stepped in to make a difference…
As cinevesture.com (coming soon), an online marketplace built by a bunch of us, prepares for a launch, I can’t help reminiscing about Film Bazaar and my time with it.
The genesis of Film Bazaar
Film Bazaar was born out of a fated trip in 2007 to Cinemart, held alongside the Rotterdam International Film Festival, a novel and awe-inspiring experience. Curated projects, ripe for production, were matched with potential producers through a well-oiled process of speed-dating. As working hours came to a close, networking cocktails took over where business conversations carried on well into late evenings.
I was super-motivated by this experience and decided to emulate it asap. And as it turned out, with plenty of determination but little knowledge & preparation.
Teething troubles
Much to my chagrin, the lack of experience in organising a film market and knowledge of the processes involved in preparing production-ready projects was glaringly obvious in the first edition of Film Bazaar (2007). Setting up meetings in advance is a norm we all follow. It was anything but, those days. Preparing an elevator pitch, a synopsis, story treatment etc were not the organic process we take for granted nowadays.
Several stressful and sometimes humorous episodes emanated from this particular school of hard knocks. An international delegate, exhausted from a long day of meetings, complained half-jokingly that he encountered two types of pitches – the long pitch (i.e. the narration of the script) and the short pitch (i.e. I am making a film, do you have money?). A few others stepped back for some years.
As we struggled to earn the trust and confidence of the film fraternity in India and elsewhere, there were only marginal improvements over the next couple of years. It did not look good for us.
The learning curve
Our troubles taught us that the internationally established norms of collaboration we were trying to copy would not necessarily address the specific challenges we faced in the Indian subcontinent. Despite keen interest from leading festivals, very few films actually made the cut in the early 2000s. The feedback was intense.
From an international perspective, scripting, pitching, editing, sound, post-production et al were all on the table for discussion. 2007 and 2008 marked the setting up of the Screenwriters’ Lab (with the aim to mentor scripts and make them production worthy), and the Work-in-Progress Lab (to review and improve films at the rough cut stage). Creating project material and making an effective pitch became vital tools to build upon. Production workshops were an important link to the ecosystem. The seminars and master classes became a source of information-sharing to propel the film business.
We were fortunate and very grateful to have the support of a fantastic group of mentors/ colleagues from the world over, including India. They shared their expertise generously and worked with participants, encouraging them to tap their potential.
FB turns a corner
The payoffs first appeared in 2011 when five films earned acclaim at leading film festivals and/or at the box office. Many writers, directors, and producers (and indeed, members of the Film Bazaar team itself) have built remarkable careers since. To name only a few by way of example would be an injustice to the others.
The Viewing Room, first set up in 2011, opened a window to more than a 100-150 films each year, enabling their producers to connect with potential investors, co-producers, and festival programmers.
Film Bazaar became a breeding ground for entrepreneurs and new enterprises, proving the importance of marketplaces in building relationships and thus facilitating the business of film.
For me, Film Bazaar was a work of passion, born out of a desire to bring Indian and South Asian films on the world map, build new talent, and forge business relationships. I like to believe some progress was made.
Onwards now to a new venture!
Very grateful that FilmBazaar existed. I met my closest current collaborators there.
I am a prolific author of several published novels seeking movie production house to bring my SWA copyrighted manuscripts and published books to life on the big screen, My stories are designed to appeal to audiences across India and around the world.