Is India ready to tell its stories to the world? Is the world asking for content from India?
The inaugural session of FICCI Frames 2023 celebrated Indian storytelling, analysed the M&E (media and entertainment) sector’s potential as a global soft power and laid the intellectual ground to make India the content hub of the world. In his keynote address, the secretary of ministry of information & broadcasting, Government of India Apurva Chandra spoke about how the government would like to be facilitators and supporters of the M&E industry and help it grow.
“The media entertainment industry in India has reached $26 billion, which is a remarkable figure,” Chandra said. But at the same time, it is “a reality check that we are still one per cent of the world. So we have a huge market that remains to be captured,” he added. “The world is interested in Indian stories and Indian culture. By winning Oscars, it can be observed that our films are appreciated by the world. Then what is it that constrains us? Why is it that we are not reaching world scale?” he asked. He pointed out two major reasons – manpower and infrastructure. “We would like to work along with the industry to set up more and more institutes so that more manpower comes on board,” Chandra said. He said that the animation, visual effects and gaming sectors have tremendous potential, and the sector is growing almost every year.
The AVGC industry veterans agree that India needs to have more career options in the creative sector to get the youth into this industry. Chandra, who also heads the AVGC Task Force, said that his team has come up with the AVGC policy and has created an AVGC mission to take the vision forward. “We can work right from the school level into skilling our children and introduce courses for animation and visual effects in the school curriculum,” he said, so that then they can grow up as animators and creators of stories in the AVGC industry.
While Karnataka has its own Centre of Excellence (COE) set-up in Bengaluru, he stated that the Government hopes to make the Mumbai COE operational by next year.
Coming back to content and its creation, digital plays a major role in consumption. There was a time when one did not a have a platform to showcase talent. Now, talent is not restricted to only films and TV shows. Anyone and everyone with ideas now can do something big.
To support such ideas, Chandra said, “Through NFDC we need to finance projects and give support to young filmmakers who don’t have access to funds otherwise. We plan to come up with NFDC’s own OTT service as a platform to showcase those films that don’t get space in the market so that young talent gets a chance to showcase its talent.”
FICCI Frames is being conducted at Westin hotel in Powai, Mumbai from 3 to 5 May.