Marten Rabarts, currently artistic director of Binger Filmlab, will step down at the end of May to take up the role of head of development with India’s National Film Development Corporation (NFDC).

Rabarts will relocate to Mumbai to take up the newly-created role. He will establish a fully-fledged development arm for the national funding body and oversee the launch of a professional development and training hub for directors, producers and writers in Mumbai.

This hub will also take out a ‘knowledge caravan’ to take international expertise to other filmmaking centres across the Indian subcontinent.

Marten Rabarts leaves Binger Filmlab after 12 years heading its creative growth and development. For the past five years he has also overseen Screenwriters Lab, a partnership between the NFDC and Binger Filmlab, which is held annually at Film Bazaar in Goa.

“We are so pleased Marten will be joining us to help grow and expand the scope of what NFDC will offer to our independent film-making community,” said NFDC managing director Nina Lath Gupta. “He brings not only knowledge and experience in creative and professional development, but an instinct for spotting talent and a real gift of knowing what to add for that talent to excel.”

Indian filmmaker Anurag Kashyap (Gangs Of Wasseypur) said: “We have a new generation of filmmakers striving to make films which work beyond our own market and take Indian stories to the world and beyond our own diaspora audience.

“Someone like Marten brings not only his extensive knowledge and huge network, but over the past years of creating and running the Film Bazaar Screenwriters Lab he’s found a real connection to the specifics of where Indian cinema is heading. I’m very pleased he’s coming on the journey with us.”