CII BIG PICTURE SUMMIT: Vision Bengal

December 12, 13, 2014

On December 12 and 13 2014, Confederation of Indian Industry held the Big Picture Summit at the Part Hotel. The summit was titled “The Next Big Leap in Bengali Media & Entertainment Industry”. This summit, normally held in Delhi, was brought to Kolkata for the first time by Mr. Prosenjit Chatterjee, Chairman, CII National Committee on Media & Entertainment. December 12 was dedicated to networking dinner, while on December 13 there were six sessions held in the course of the day. To put the discussions in context, IMRB had been commissioned to carry out a survey on the film viewing habits of the public in West Bengal. The revelations were an eye opener – 54% of viewers have not been to a movie theatre in the last one year to watch a Bengali film; in the districts about two thirds have been to a hall to watch Bengali films, but the frequency of visits is quite low – not even three times in a year. The single screen theatres have 30% occupancy on weekends and 20% on week days.

To address this bleak situation stalwarts like Anjan Dutta gave a call to the youngsters to think out of the box. The time is just right to redefine cinema and to explore new avenues to reach out to an audience.  Sudeshna Roy gave the example of Labour of Love made by Aditya Vikram Sengupta – an off beat film that has won laurels at Cannes.

The subsequent sessions addressed issues of policy regimes, investment roadblocks, good content and lastly the television industry. The participants were quick to point out that content for television needs to be seriously looked into. In other countries television content has been revolutionized. The serials are as engrossing as feature films, but in India, the contents are dumbed down to abysmal depths.

Therefore to pull the media and entertainment industry out of its present low, new concepts of production and exhibition have to be put into practice.

Twenty five iLEADERS worked as volunteers at the summit and many more attended the sessions asking pointed questions and sharing their thoughts.