Other Topics : Art Culture - Fashion - Tourism

Latest & Hot Bollywood Film News : * hourly updation

Back to Bollywood Current News Section

 
Britain wooing Indian film industry
By Prasun Sonwalkar, Indo-Asian News Service

London, April 2 (IANS) Britain is wooing India's film industry in a big way. Besides offering tax concessions, its regions are bidding to invite producers from Mumbai and to host an annual Bollywood show organised outside India.
                

                           Advertisement

As a group of producers from Mumbai began a visit to Northern Ireland to check out possible film locations and meet local industry personnel, Yorkshire put in a bid to host the annual International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) event.

The visit to Ulster and other parts of Northern Ireland has been organised by the Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission, whose executives visited India in January.

India's consul-general in Belfast, Lord Diljit Rana, a prominent businessman and leader of the Northern Ireland's business organizations, will receive the Indian producers.

The producers' busy schedule includes visits to a number of top tourist attractions, including the Giant's Causeway, Dunluce Castle, Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, the Antrim Coast Road and the Mourne Mountains.

Northern Ireland leaders hope that filming Indian films in the region would boost tourism from India. A recent industry survey revealed that as many as one in five visitors from India to Britain after seeing the country on screen.

Moyra Lock, the film commission's head of marketing, said: "Indian audiences are very much influenced by what they see up on screen. They tend to jet off to locations they have seen on screen.

"We believe they will fall in love with the scenery such as the Causeway coast."

Meanwhile, the Yorkshire Tourist Board has submitted a bid to the IIFA to host the 2007 awards in Yorkshire. The bid has the backing of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Duke of York.

Yorkshire officials hope that if the bid is accepted, around 400 Indian stars including Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Anil Kapoor, Hrithik Roshan, Rani Mukherjee and Aishwarya Rai will visit the region.

The four-day IIFA celebration traditionally takes place in June and begins with a star-studded red carpet event. This is usually followed by a charity cricket match with stars pitted against sportsmen. Previous host cities have included London, which staged the first event, Johannesburg, Singapore and Amsterdam.

The Yorkshire Tourist Board has put in the collective bid shared by Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, York and Hull.

The bid to bring the multi-million pound four-day event to the region is spearheaded by David Andrew, chief executive of the Yorkshire Tourist Board, and board member and bid director Zulfi Karim.

Karim, a former commercial director of Bradford International Festival, told the Yorkshire Evening Post that Yorkshire had already seen off competition from Melbourne and Marrakech to host the awards and was now up against New York.

He said: "This is a huge opportunity for Yorkshire. We offer a cocktail of cultures, a fantastic landscape and a great heritage."

Local officials hope that if accepted the event could generate around 10 million pounds for the area.

Sanjib Sahota, events director for Sony Television, said: "Events like this are excellent at regenerating a city, and the awards would definitely increase the number of visitors to Bradford.

"The test will be long-term and if successful it is important to build on the bid and develop further activities."

The Yorkshire event would climax on day three with a glittering Oscars-style awards ceremony at Sheffield's Hallam Arena but the focus of the second day would be Leeds.

Plans have been drawn up to transform the city centre into a virtual "Bollywood theme park" with Indian flags, art, dance, fashion, food and classic Indian movies projected onto the sides of buildings.

Headingley would stage a charity cricket match with an IIFA XI taking on a team of sporting stars and local dignitaries. Indian star batsman and former Yorkshire player Sachin Tendulkar has reportedly pledged his backing to the county's bid.

Leeds City Council leader Coun Andrew Carter said: "We are hugely enthusiastic about the opportunity to showcase to an international audience the true spirit of our multi-cultural communities."