Tollywood, Bangladesh film industry join hands to develop cinema

Tollywood, Bangladesh film industry join hands to develop cinema

KOLKATA: When it comes to art and exchange of ideas, all geographical and political borders cease to exist. The notion was translated into reality when representatives of the film fraternity from both West Bengal and Bangladesh on Saturday decided to have "one Bengali film industry".

To begin with, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) will be signed between Bengal group and associates of Bangladesh and Ideas and associates headed by actor Prasenjit Chatterjee on Monday. The basic idea is to bring people of Tollywood and the Bangladesh film industry to work together and develop digitized cinema halls and cineplexes in both Dhaka and West Bengal.

Minister of information, government of people's republic of Bangladesh, Hasanul Haq Inu and Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC) managing director Pijush Bandyopadhaya along with film actors and directors from Bangladesh met Tollywood superstar Prasenjit Chatterjee, director Rituparno Ghosh and several Bengali film producers of Tollywood and discussed the idea to increase the market of Bengali films.

"It would be wonderful if we can come up with a one Bengali film industry market for West Bengal and Bangladesh. We will have to meet several times again to discuss on the initiative. We could start with a plan to set up 100 cinema halls each on both sides of Bengal. If we can work together and set up a common platform, the Bengali film industry could have a market of Rs 10,000 crore in the next five years," said Prasenjit.

Inu said it was wonderful that the ideas which he had discussed during his last trip to Kolkata about a month ago were taking a realistic shape. "There are over 30 crore Bengali speaking people all across the world. Though there are challenges like that of indecency, new technology, piracy and investment, cooperation between both Banglas will help in developing the Bengali film industry," he said.

Bandyopadhaya said that they want to catch the world market by putting up Bengali film industry upfront in a joint initiative. "We have started a little late, but we have finally started on digitization of cinema halls in Bangladesh," he said.

According to plans, there will be cultural centres in all districts of both West Bengal and Bangladesh where there will be a cinema hall, an auditorium, a library and a cafeteria. There will also be two advisory committees, one each for West Bengal and Bangladesh, and a five-member steering committee will look after the joint initiative.

Representatives of the film fraternity from both sides of Bengal - West Bengal and Bangladesh - met in the city on Saturday and came up with a vow to have a 'one Bengali film industry' to develop and increase the market of Bengali films. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) will be signed between Bengal group and associates of Bangladesh and Ideas and associates headed by actor Prasenjit Chatterjee on Monday so that the film fraternity from both Bangladesh and Tollywood film industry can work together to develop digitized cinema halls and development of cineplexes in both Dhaka and West Bengal.

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