In its inaugural edition in 2024, the Cinevesture International Film Festival looked at both the art and commerce involved in filmmaking. Apart from screening Indian and international movies, the festival in Chandigarh had a “marketplace” forum aimed at connecting filmmakers with investors.
This year’s edition, which will be held between March 20 and 23 in Chandigarh, is widening the scope of its market. The ProofPoint programme has been introduced for filmmakers who want to convert their short films into full-length features. The section comprises 17 films by dictors such as Kenny Basumatary, Nitin Baid, Mansi Jain and Mark Bennington.
InTheWorks Lab consists of six under-development projects being offered for mentorship by seasoned professionals, such as Shonali Bose, Sidharth Meer and Nitin Baid. Jaggi director Anmol Sidhu’s Kikran de Phul, Soumitra Ranade’s Sat Asat and Geetika Narang Abbasi’s Mahjabeen are among the titles in this programme.
Cinev Spotlight has six films, such as Abhilash Sharma’s Swaha and Sanju Surendan’s Khidki Gaav. Round two of Cinevesture will also offer 22 films in various stages of development to potential financiers.
Among the projects seeking investment are Radhika Apte’s Koyta, Honey Trehan’s The Blade Runner, Prateek Vats’s Chronicles of a Confession, Rishi Chandna’s Ghol, Ajitpal Singh’s Marx and Lenin, Nandita Das’s provisionally titled Avi & Smi, Bijukumar Damodaran’s Beyond The Border Lines and Shonali Bose’s Black Mountain Monpa.
Alongside these sections is a showcase of Indian and international cinema. Bina Paul has curated a programme that includes the Indian premiere of Hur Jin-ho’s Korean film A Normal Family. Ankur Singla’s Punjabi-language Fathers and Sons will have its world premiere at Cinevesture.
Among the international titles are Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, Magnus von Horn’s The Girl with the Needle, Lawrence Valin’s Little Jaffna, Mati Diop’s Dahomey, Yeo Siew Hua’s Stranger Eyes, Min Bahadur Bham’s Shambhala, Neo Sora’s Happyend and My Favorite Cake by Maryam Moghadam, Behtash Sanaeeh.
Part of the Indian selection are Kaushal Oza’s Little Thomas, Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Ghamasaan, Ishan Shukla’s Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust, Raam Reddy’s The Fable, Dibakar Banerjee’s Tees, Vetrimaaran’s Viduthalai Part 2, Aditya Watts’s Kaansya, Vipin Radhakrishnan’s Angammal, Aranya Sahay’s Humans in the Loop, Jayan Cherian’s Rhythm of Dammam, Subhadra Mahajan’s Second Chance, Nikhil Mahajan’s The Tiger and A Fly On the Wall by Nilesh Maniyar & Shonali Bose.
Cinevesture’s founder Nina Lath brings to the festival the experience and heft she built during the years that she ran Film Bazaar for the National Film Development Corporation in Goa. Film Bazaar’s programmes, which range from script mentoring to co-production deals, have yielded several award-winning indie films over the decades.
Lath’s vision for Cinevesture draws from her belief that there are bridgeable gaps between filmmakers and investors working outside traditional modes of production. In an interview with Scroll, Lath explained Cinevesture’s agenda for its second edition and the new trends in independent film production. Here are edited excerpts from an interview.
What made you feel that Chandigarh not only needed its own film festival but also a marketplace?
Chandigarh has a huge student population. Apart from Delhi and Mumbai, films in every language are released here.
I also felt that there is a pain point in the industry, where filmmakers are constantly looking to connect with people who have money but don’t know how to get it. It tends to be a very disorganised type of private investment, taking place mostly through friends and family networks. Also, while there is an increasing demand for films, not every executive or streaming platform has the time to look at everything.
We decided to address that pain point by connecting private investors and financiers with curated projects. We wanted to give a structure to the financing, and build an ecosystem.
The 2024 edition was a pilot, set up within eight to 10 weeks. The idea was to test the market’s response. This year is the actual first edition.
Did any projects presented in 2024 make any progress?
We are on board with Bhaskar Hazarika’s #Jack. Fahad Mustafa’s Laali is going into production. It’s got Konkona Sensharma. I’m working with Fahad on Laali – we hand-hold every project until it happens.
Ayappa KM’s Peach No. 15 is done. Bauddhayan Mukherji’s The Bookkeeper’s Wife has a producer on board. Gurvinder Singh’s The Trials is underway.
This year’s market has been expanded, with three new sections.
The best alignment came out of a random conversation with Christina Marouda, who leads the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. Last year, she set up a market that was essentially for the diaspora. This year, we have a strategic partnership with IFFLA called CinéV-IFFLA.
Hollywood is increasingly interested in India and South Asia. Indian filmmakers are trying to tie up with agents over there. It’s a two-way street. There is no industry with which India could be better aligned than Hollywood.
There are also potential investors in the diaspora within the Middle East, Singapore, and pockets of the United Kingdom. We have curated projects from India and South Asia that we believe have the capability to align with producers in Hollywood and investors in the US.
In the European model, numerous producers rather than one or two companies finance a project. Does this work for India? This has already happened with Indian documentaries, which have multiple producers.
It’s definitely one of the ways forward. It might end up being the main way forward.
It’s unfair to expect investors to hedge all their bets on one project. It’s better that they spread their risks across multiple projects. The chances of a return on investment are that much more. It’s a great way to work, and definitely healthier.
It’s very much like a start-up. Every start-up has multiple investments. I view every film as a start-up.
Apart from trying to build investor and creator networks, we are also trying to put in a set of standard operating procedures. There tends to be an opaqueness to investing in films, not just in India but across the world. You put in the money but you don’t know where it goes or whether it will come back. If you put in SOPs, neither the creator nor the investor feels short-changed.
Is it correct to say that conversations around indie and arthouse cinema in India have moved away from writing and direction to other areas, such as gap financing, sales agents and distribution?
When I joined NFDC, people would come with a first draft. Even the thought of working on a second or a third draft was a conversation to be had with some filmmakers. I think that story is over now.
Connecting with European co-producers, how to make a pitch – these things were very new at Film Bazaar, but all that has changed. People know how to make a quick elevator pitch on their own. We don’t have a pitch at Cinevesture this year because we feel that we don’t need one – these are very senior, experienced filmmakers. These are direct B2B [business-to-business] meetings.
The time has passed when just a screenplay would get you a film. With computers, you don’t know who is writing the script any more. There is no longer a demonstration of your craft. That’s why we have ProofPoint. The depiction of a short story and its potential conversion into a longer narrative is a good way for a filmmaker to demonstrate his craft.