One of the clearest signs of change this year at Film Bazaar – the NFDC-backed film project market that has been operating in Goa, India, for 19 years – is the change of name to Waves Film Bazaar. Otherwise, the working thesis appears to be ‘bigger and better’.
“The World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (Waves) was an initiative led by our prime minister Mr Modi, which received such an overwhelmingly great response [earlier this year] that we decided to keep the legacy of Film Bazaar and combine it with the new legacy of Waves,” says market head Vineeta Mishra.
“Waves Film Bazaar is the biggest South Asian market to happen every year and we have participation from 40 countries, where we used to get 30 countries,” adds Mishra. “Footfall is going to be up.”
Visiting executives should expect to find a slightly expanded selection of projects and an AI “hackathon” that is the brainchild of Shekhar Kapur, film director, head of the International Film Festival India (IFFI) and longtime technology advocate.
The “CinemAI Hackathon”, organised by the NFDC and LTIMindtree, is open to filmmaking teams of up to five people who were required to submit previously made AI-generated short films. The top 10 teams advance to an onsite hackathon at Goa’s Kala Academy, where they will be given 48 hours to create a two-minute film on a yet-to-be-revealed topic. At stake are multiple cash prizes and a public premiere at IFFI.
Co-production projects
From some 300 project submissions, WFB selectors have retained 22 features seeking co-production, five documentary projects and five works in progress, which organisers describe as “a thoughtful balance between emerging voices and seasoned industry veterans”.
“The different factors they have in mind are, first, if a project has potential for co-production between countries,” Mishra explains. “Second, if they’re supporting a new filmmaker who do not have that kind of support already. And third would be someone who already might have the director and producer attached, but they need gap funding or a nudge that will take [the project] to the world.”
“We have more drama and more horror both in terms of the projects submitted and those we selected,” says WFB chief selector Ethan Harsh. “These kinds of films are getting more theatrical releases and more play on OTT platforms, so there is a demand for them.”
The Indian market has seen a recent boom in horror-comedy.
“In the past couple of years, the buyers, film festivals and producers who come [to the Bazaar] have been looking for more language diversity and a variety of talent which is hidden in the remote areas of India,” says Mishra. “So, along with the other criteria, we also keep a check on country participation and languages. We have plenty of English and Hindi [projects] already. But we want to support the regional as well – Tamil, Telugu, Assamese or North Indian projects.”
Shape Of Momo (aka Chhora Jastai), which appeared in the WIP section of Film Bazaar last year, is a proud recent example. The feature directorial debut of Tribeny Rai is set in her native Sikkim region and follows a woman who returns to her family home, observes other women burdened by patriarchy and tradition, and must herself resist their attempts to match her with a ‘suitable boy’.
The project won a prize at the Film Bazaar before being boarded by French sales agency Celluloid Dreams. As a completed work, it recently made its debut at Busan and San Sebastian.
Acclaimed creators
The fiction project selection features acclaimed filmmakers and creators such as Kiran Rao, Vikramaditya Motwane, Shakun Batra, Devashish Makhija, Ira Dubey, Sarita Patil, Shaunak Sen and Bafta award-winning director Ben Crichton.
As market head, Mishra does not want to pick favourites. Fortunately, the selection committee has identified three NFDC Handpicked Focused Projects “to get the success or recognition they deserve”.
They include Shamed, a fact-based tale of intra-family murder that became a landmark legal case in the UK, directed by Dikssha Jyote Routray; Smash, a Russia-India sports drama directed by Maxim Kuznetsov; and Tiger In The Lion’s Den (previously Freedom Friends), an India-UK co-production depicting India’s struggle to escape colonial rule, as told by a cohort of Indians living in Britain. Among them was VL Krishna Menon, who was also the founder of book publisher Penguin.
Making the Bazaar a magnet for festival selectors and co-producers, this year’s market is also hosting Waves Film Bazaar Recommends, a section showcasing completed titles: three short fiction films, three mid-length documentaries and 16 feature films.
These include returning project Notun Gur, which previously participated in the Asia Pacific Screen Lab, Produire au Sud, and the Film Independent Global Media Makers Los Angeles Residency, and The Ink-Stained Hand And The Missing Thumb. This was produced by Anupama Chopra, supported by the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity and appeared as a work in progress at Hong Kong’s HAF project market.
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