November 24, 2005

GOA, India ~ In an effort to gain additional worldwide recognition as a production base, India will sign a film co-production agreement with the United Kingdom on December 05 and will ink similar agreements with Germany and China in the near future.

News of the agreements was revealed today (Thursday 24 November) prior to the inauguration of the 36th annual International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa.

The agreement with the UK, which runs to 15 pages of fine print, states that the maximum number of co-producers for any one film will be four, with at least one coming from each country. The co-producers are also expected to “demonstrate a good track record in film-production,” effectively ruling out new entrants.

The agreement contains a clause that calls on both parties to produce only films that do not advocate violence or “be of a blatantly pornographic nature or openly offend human dignity”.

Union Minister of Culture and Urban Development, Mr Shri Jaipal Reddy, said that other countries have also shown interest in entering into similar agreements with India, not least because the sub-continent offers beautiful locales and historical monuments for shooting.

In a parallel statement the minister also said that to address the problem of piracy in the film industry, the Indian government is actively working on a new law called Optical Disc Restrictions Law. The opinion of experts on the proposed law has been obtained and the provisions of the law could be finalized soon, he added. [This story originally appeared in filmfesivals.com before fest21 came into being]