Indian Consulate General to open in November in Kazan

For now, Indian films are being made in Komi

As Minnullina explained, the dates for the forum, which will take place at the Bashir Rameev IT Park, were announced a year ago. Could the forum and the opening of the Consulate General have been combined?

“Yes, that would have been possible,” the head of the Tatarstan Investment Development Agency replied. “But we simply got out of sync with the dates, because the Consulate General will open sometime in November. It was simply impossible to do it earlier due to the lengthy approval procedures.”

In addition to the business programme, during these days there will be, for example, a lecture by the founder of the international organisation Art of Living, Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. A youth round table will take place at Kazan Federal University. At the House of Friendship of the Peoples of Tatarstan, there will be tastings, masterclasses, and concerts. As for sports, a CS-2 and FIFA cyber tournament is expected, along with cricket in a phygital format.

Finally, from October 8–10, the Mir cinema will host an Indian film festival. It will open with the film Snow Flower by director Ganjendra Ahire, a Russian-Indian production filmed mainly in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. The plot follows a couple travelling to the funeral of their son, who lived in Khanty-Mansiysk. The screening will be attended by the Indian Ambassador to Russia, Vinay Kumar, as well as representatives of the Indian film industry.

Interestingly, this is the only example of such a co-production, noted the head of Tatarkino, Milyausha Aituganova.

Kazan will also screen the melodrama Conversations in Milan — about the love between a director and a girl from a clergyman’s family, Portraits — with sketches on the state’s struggle against its citizens, the relationship comedy Sani Sanskari and Tulsi Kumari, Theatre — Myth of Reality — featuring rituals from Kerala, and the story of a lawyer and a jester, Jolly 3.

Bring back Bollywood!

Overall, Tatarkino has been holding Indian Film Days since 2016. But, Aituganova noted, distributors usually bypass Kazan — despite the love for India, at least among the older generation.

“Over the past 20–30 years, Indian cinema has not been represented on the Russian film scene,” Aituganova explained. “Hollywood films dominated, even though Bollywood has now caught up with Hollywood in terms of the number of productions.”

“It is a very positive trend today that Indian cinema is making a comeback,” the producer said. “Clearly, we all remember the old Indian films. Probably the 60+ generation remembers these movies, when in every rural club, wherever travelling cinema came to show Indian films, the halls were packed.”

“Milyausha Lyabibovna and I will still think about how to screen these films. I believe it would be very popular,” continued the topic of nostalgia, Deputy Minister of Culture of Tatarstan Damir Natfullin.

“As the programme curator, I realised that I don’t know some of the star figures whom the Indian side points out as special people, with a certain status, requiring an assigned translator and a car,” Minnullina noted.

“When I invite Arab actors here, they tell me they cost such-and-such. And I say, sorry, you are not known in Russia, we cannot pay you that much,” added Aituganova on the subject of popularity.

Indian cinema now wants to enter the Russian market, Aituganova noted. Minnullina added that a group of film industry representatives is flying to Russia specifically: first to St. Petersburg, then Kazan, and finally Moscow.

Incidentally, the film programmes differ in these cities: for the capital of Tatarstan, for example, they decided not to bring films in which the heroine immediately goes to bed with the producer. That would not be understood here…

“Our Indian colleagues, representatives of the film sector, said it would be good to organise a business mission for Indian screenwriters in Tatarstan, to show them the ancient city of Bolgar, the island city of Sviyazhsk, the nature, our unique sites, and river confluences. Perhaps this would inspire them with ideas for scripts,” Minnullina noted.

Building pavilions? Developing post-production facilities?

The head of the Investment Development Agency also recalled the problem of the small number of film studios in Russia. Aituganova noted that such ideas were discussed even before the coronavirus pandemic, with plans to build studios near Zelenodolsk and at Kazan Expo.

“Tatarstan could become a post-production hub,” Aituganova said, recalling, for example, the Almetyevsk studio Dalina Graphics. “We have many specialists, unknown to us, working for Russian and even Hollywood cinema. But building a studio is a very expensive undertaking — it costs billions.”

“It’s a matter of setting priorities,” Minnullina noted. “If we want to develop our own cinema, these are budget investments. If cinema is considered a commercial project, building a studio can pay off with proper management.”

Aituganova also shared a long-standing dream of a dubbing studio. Sometimes films that are uninteresting to Russian distributors find demand among Arab and Turkish colleagues.

“The entire Arab world, the entire Turkic world — they gladly take our films,” Aituganova noted.

Naturally, at the press breakfast, journalists asked what the guests would be eating.

“We are creating the most hospitable business atmosphere possible, including offering vegetarian dishes so that everyone can make a choice,” Minnullina replied. “Because people will come from 20 regions of the Russian Federation, most of whom are not vegetarians. We need to provide options for everyone.”

Incidentally, the Indians themselves expressed their willingness to hold mass yoga sessions. They were encouraged to develop this idea for next year.