NFDC and Locarno Fest join hands for Screenwriters’ Lab 2009

National Film Development Corporation Ltd. (NFDC), will conduct Screenwriters' Lab 2009, a 2-part screenwriters' workshop for writing and selling original Indian screenplays, in association with
Binger Filmlab, the Locarno International Film Festival and the Entertainment Society of Goa.Screenwriter's Lab 2009, a 2-part workshop
is designed to prepare screenwriters' with original Indian stories for working with the international filmmaking market place. It aims at improving a completed screenplay in its final stages and to increase the international marketability of the same.

The 1^st Session will be held during the Locarno International Film Festival, Locarno, Switzerland from 8^th - 12^th August, 2009 where participants will get first-hand experience of the workings of the international film community and get to train with their screenplay mentors.

The 2^nd session at Film Bazaar, Goa from 24^th - 26^th November 2009 is where participants will apply their training and pitch their revised screenplays to participants at the film market.

The workshop will be conducted by Marten Rabarts, Artistic Director, Binger Filmlab, aided by experienced international guest mentors.

French Embassy to Gift 234 Films to NFAI

India and France are poised to once again raise the level of their efforts towards preservation in the fields of film and television. The Embassy of France in India has decided to donate as many as 234 films from its library in New Delhi to the National Film Archives of India (NFAI), Pune, this month. All these films are produced in France and are of high cinematic quality and excellence.

An agreement to this effect will be signed on 30^th April 2009 at NFAI at 5.30 in the evening, which will be followed by a three-days film festival. Mr. Philippe Martinet, Cultural Counsellor, Embassy of France and Mr. Vijay Jadhav, Director, NFAI will sign the agreement.

The donation of these 234 films, under the international archive regulations, marks the continuation of cooperation between the Embassy of France and the NFAI. The Embassy of France in New Delhi is dedicated to promoting film and television preservation and heritage.  In 2003, as many as 88 films were handed over to the NFAI. Earlier, in 1998, the Embassy of France donated 29 films to the National Film Archives of India.

Under the agreement, all these films will be preserved at the NFAI premises in standard conditions and will be permitted for use for non-commercial screenings, research and studies. From motion pictures to television, the mushrooming of visual communications counts among the most significant cultural evolutions of the 20^th century. Everywhere in the world people are seizing the possibilities opened up by the visual media to create a vast cultural and documentary heritage. The Embassy of France in India is committed to strengthening the relations between cultural institutions of our two countries towards achieving this goal.