The government will soon create a Centre for Excellence in the AVGC sector in Mumbai, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting L. Murugan said while delivering the keynote at the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) for Documentary, Short Fiction and Animation.

The Minister, who declared the festival open on Saturday last, added that the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) sector has great potential for creating employment and growth.

While pointing out that the government is working towards making India a global content hub, Murugan also emphasized the government’s efforts in controlling content piracy by bringing forth an amendment in the Cinematograph Act.

As part of making India a content hub, the Minister, who is in his second term as Minister of State at MIB, highlighted that a federal incentive scheme has been put in place to encourage shooting in the country, apart from also having a single window system for permissions to shoot in India.

Underlining MIFF’s role in bringing together filmmakers from all over the world, Murugan said that documentary films play a vital role in showcasing the unique abilities, emotions and human bonds in a true and natural way.

The inaugural ceremony was also graced by entertainment industry  celebrities like Madhur Bhandarkar, Richie Mehta (Indian-Canadian producer-director of Emmy Award winning ‘Delhi Crimes’ S1 on Netflix), Anand L Rai, Divya Dutta, Randeep Hooda, Abhishek Bannerjee, Sonali Kulkarni, Divyendu, Sharad Kelkar, Taha Shah, Rahul Rawail, Suraj Thakur, Vinit Singh, Avinash Tiwary, Kailash Kher, Upasana, Pankaj Jha, Saurab Sachdeva and Adil Hussain.

At the opening ceremony, renowned award-winning wildlife filmmaker Subbiah Nallamuthu was honoured with the V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award for 2024.

Creators in India Should Be Aware of IPR’s Importance: Creators need to understand the importance of registering their creative products and earning a right over it. By being an owner or author of a creative product, a person may have legal protection against infringement, legal expert on entertainment sector Anamika Jha said at a MIFF session on ‘Unveiling the Animation Frontier: Building Intellectual Properties Through Animation Films – Case Study: ‘Ayalaan’ and ‘Chhota Bheem’.

Speaking on the subject at the session yesterday, Rajiv Chilaka, creator of the popular animation character Chhota Bheem couldn’t agree less, stated a synopsis of the session put out by MIB.

Bejoy Arputharaj, who was the VFX supervisor of Tamil language sci-fi movie ‘Ayalaan’ urged that creators should register their products from the day of origination of idea.

Ashish Kulkarni, Chairman of AVGC Forum at FICCI, was moderating the session where panelists included the  UK-based film critic Naman Ramachandran who delved into different aspects of growth of the animation market in India and elsewhere.

 Chilaka, CEO of Green Gold Animation Pvt. Ltd., from whose studios ‘Chhota Bheem’ originated, took the audience through the journey of evolution of the popular children’s character, which completed 16 years in April this year and is still going strong.

Pointing out that there have been six spin-offs of the character Chhota Bheem, Chilaka said he had “registered the character right in the beginning’’.

After Amazon Prime Video had bought all the versions of ‘Chhota Bheem’, Chilaka said his company created ‘Mighty Little Bheem’ for Netflix where the series has done extremely well for four seasons.

Phantom FX’s director Bejoy Arputharaj revealed that the reason they wanted to own the IP of the ‘Ayalaan’ character was that “we felt it is marketable and will pay off’’.

While the Telugu version of ‘Ayalaan’ is already out, the makers are planning to release it in Hindi and other languages. “We are now planning to do a cartoon series on ‘Ayalaan’ and also work on an idea of taking people to the ayalaan or alien’s planet in further series”, Arputharaj added.

According to Ramachandran, people want more localised entertainment products in the post-COVID world and that Indian animation characters should come out from the country’s rich history.

India is a massive market and producers need not look abroad for content, he said, adding that ideas should be locally deeply-rooted locally.

Legal expert Jha, who also goes by the name ‘Attorney for Creators’, cautioned budding creators by stating, “If you put your heart and soul into a character, you must own its IP rights”.