Poland banks on B to woo Bollywood, Bid to unseat Switzerland as favourite | Yash Chopra’s Chandni and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge spawned a generation of Bollywood films shot in Switzerland. Now Poland is hoping Amitabh Bachchan can help it challenge — if not unseat — the Swiss Alps as the preferred destination for Indian filmmakers searching for foreign locales to shoot movies. Poland is planning a film festival with Bachchan as its face to build on a quiet but effective diplomatic initiative Warsaw has undertaken to draw Indian filmmakers to a nation that was closed to the world a little over two decades ago. The country’s culture minister attended the 2012 International Film Festival of India in Goa. Piotr Klodkowski, Poland’s ambassador to India, is a common sight at film festivals across India — this past week, he was at a festival in Jodhpur. And the former communist nation is planning a just-for-India programme to take Indian filmmakers to Poland to convince them of the benefits of shooting at the country’s castles and lakes and in its snow-clad mountains, senior Polish diplomats have told The Telegraph. “Icons like Mr Bachchan help in bringing attention to areas of common interest and collaboration,” said Anna Tryc-Bromley, director of the Polish Institute for Culture in New Delhi that is organising the film festival, clarifying that Bachchan’s presence at the festival would depend on his busy schedule. Other Polish diplomatic sources confirmed that the ambassador had met Bachchan twice, and that the two had discussed the festival. Warsaw’s initiatives are part of a larger diplomatic tussle. Diplomats at many embassies in India, particularly those of eastern and central European nations, say their mandate today includes very definite instructions to try and attract Indian film producers and directors. Ad film makers are also targets. Like Poland, these countries offer lower costs that the traditionally more popular Switzerland and Austria cannot match. Compared with western Europe, their sites best suited for shooting are relatively untouched. Poland’s attempts — largely driven by Klodkowski, an Indophile popular in New Delhi’s diplomatic circles for his chaste Hindi, and his team including the culture institute — already appear to be working. Right now, 40 Indian films and advertisements are either being shot or are in the queue to shoot in Poland, according to its embassy. These include films in regional languages like Telugu. They won’t be the first, but their early predecessors didn’t help Poland much. Fanaa, the 2006 blockbuster that had Aamir Khan and Kajol in lead roles, was shot in Poland, though the snow-clad backdrop was passed off in the film as Kashmir. A 2011 action film, Aazaan, did acknowledge in a scene that it was shot in Poland. But the film bombed. Poland broadcasting institute and Doordarshan are also working on a documentary to showcase the close ties between the two nations. Many Polish nationals had made India their home after escaping Nazi troops during the Second World War. Bachchan, who has been the face of campaigns for Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Uttar Pradesh and Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, is no stranger to Poland. He visited the country with his family in 2011 and even recited poems by his father, the late Harivansh Rai Bachchan, at Krakow University. “Krakow, this amazing city,” Bachchan tweeted on April 11, 2011. “Just not getting enough of it!! Must come back again and again and again!!” After Bachchan returned from Poland, Klodkowski visited him at his home in Mumbai and presented him with a Ganesha statue made of rock salt from the Wielcza salt mines in Poland. Bachchan’s son-in-law Nikhil Nanda’s family has long ties with Poland. Their company, Escorts Group Ltd, started manufacturing tractors in 1959 with technology from a Polish company. Later, it tied up with another Polish company to manufacture Rajdoot motorbikes, which were once popular on Indian streets. But in challenging Switzerland, Poland and other nations face as steep a task as the Alps that form the backdrop for Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla as they dance to the song Tu Mere Saamne in the psychological thriller Darr. Swiss diplomat confirmed that at least 250 Bollywood films had shot scenes in Switzerland. And the Swiss acknowledge the role these films — and particularly the late Chopra’s typically big-budget movies loaded with stars — have played in driving interest in all things Swiss among Indians increasingly able to afford holidays abroad. Between 2000 and 2012, the annual number of Indian tourists in Switzerland doubled from about 150,000 to over 320,000. In contrast, only about 20,000 Indians visited Poland last year, according to the estimates of the embassy here, though the numbers may be inexact because people could have entered on a visa obtained from any country that is part of the Schengen system. “The Indian film industry is huge. It will need a lot of films shot in Poland, and acknowledging that they are shot in Poland, for it to make a real difference,” Tryc-Bromley said.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 17:00:59 +0000