Delhi has unveiled a film policy but it needs to do a lot more to get things going
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia would want to turn Delhi into India’s, nay, Asia’s, Cannes if he has his way. His enthusiasm to turn Delhi is contagious. He has just unveiled Delhi’s film policy that wants to make the national Capital (and State) as a film production hub, thereby boosting local jobs and promoting tourism. A nodal agency will ease production processes by interacting with the cinema teams and personnel from the hospitality, tourism and transport sectors. This is a creditable exercise and its success will depend on how inclusive and seamless the policy will be in practice. Modern generations of Indians still remember the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer, Trishul, largely shot in Delhi in the 1970s. The film brought Delhi into the cinematic map of India. Some of the iconic scenes were shot in Lodhi Garden, Golf Club, Odeon Theatre, Teen Murti, Old Fort, the parking lot of Oberoi and, of course, the climax in the Hall of Nations (now demolished) in Pragati Maidan. In the new century, Delhi is the preferred location for films with a heavy dose of nationalism, national politics or national institutions. Some filmmakers, thinking out of the box, revived Delhi as a popular destination by contextualising their works in Dilli rather than Delhi. Chandni Chowk and Karol Bagh in Delhi 6, the South Campus of Delhi University in Fukrey, Connaught Place in 3 Idiots, Agrasen Ki Baoli in PK, Rajouri Garden and Lajpat Nagar in Queen, or Pitampura and Kapashera in Delhi Belly focussed on the heritage, immigrant and subaltern Delhi.
Making Delhi attractive to filmmakers of the day is a bit of a challenge for Sisodia. Much of mainstream Indian cinema — not just Hindi — is romancing with realism these days. They are no longer into identity props, like Mumbai’s Marine Drive or Delhi’s India Gate. There is an eagerness for close-to-the-truth locales for believable, or credible, cinema. A recent multi-lingual film spent huge amounts of money to shoot in a village inside a pristine, hilly forest of Andhra Pradesh. Sandalwood smuggling operations in such a locale make much more cinematic sense than a film studio. Secondly, Delhi will have to develop cinema-related infrastructure if directors have to save costs of transporting crew, transport and equipment from outside. Thirdly, Sisodia can take a novel initiative and try bringing all States on a single platform for a single-window access to filmmakers. In India, 14 States have their own film facilitation policies while 18 offer various incentives to filmmakers. And now, the Union Government is also jumping into the fray, having decided to frame a model film policy and coordinate with States to set up film promotion offices. The absence of friendly local policies force producers to look for locales abroad even though film shooting is cheaper in India. A cohesive Centre-States effort is needed to make Delhi, the seat of governance, be the natural intersection between national cinematographic legislation, India’s internal cinematographic market, cinema’s cultural values and film-makers’ freedom of expression.
