UK-India film: Nandy’s cultural agreement starts to show green shoots

While the UK and India have a strong history of collaborating on film productions, the 2020s has seen a boom in co-operation between the two countries.

Helped since 2008 by a series of film co-production deals, a new cultural deal this May promised to “open the door” more for UK creative exports to India.

“The mistake would be to think that the rise has happened… there’s plenty more to go,” Rishi Coupland, director of research at the British Film Institute, said at the India Global Forum.

“We want to be a country that’s open to the world and to cultural exchange… yes there’s a trade element to that – these cultural creative industries are big business – but actually the simple act of cultural exchange is very important,” he added.

Several Indian films have already achieved significant success at the UK box office: Action movie Pathaan and Jawan, both released in 2023, became the UK’s first and second-highest grossing Indian films, respectively.

“It’s fair to say that there is a demand that goes beyond just the Indian diaspora for our content,” Monisha Advani, chief of Emmay Entertainment and Motion Pictures, said.

“Technology plays a big role in shrinking the globe [and] curiosity is the thing that makes this content travel,” she added.

Making a project work is “intensely complicated”, Coupland said, adding that he was “starting to see really encouraging [signs] between the UK and India.”

This May’s cultural agreement promised to encourage long-term partnerships between UK and Indian businesses, as well as launching the ‘Starring GREAT Britain’ campaign in India, which is set to draw upon film and TV locations “as a driver for inward tourism to the UK”.

“Britain and India lead the world [in the arts and creative industries]… the UK’s culture – from food, fashion and film to music, sport and literature – is enriched by the unique contribution of the Indian diaspora,” UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy said in Mumbai earlier this year.

“India has one of the youngest populations in the world… all those young people are going to bring new ideas and new stories,” Advani said.”What’s interesting is what happens next.”

“[At the launch of the cultural agreement] it felt like there [was] a new energy… the new energy has at its heart this twin idea that that in India there can be an absolute belief in the kind of craft of storytelling and the stories that make everyone come back, but there can be very new ways of telling it.”

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