Canada and India on July 1, 2014 signed a long-anticipated official coproduction treaty.

Bollywood director Deepa Sahi on Thursday told the Whistler Film Festival that Canadian and Indian producers will realize the full benefits of the treaty only if they go beyond meeting its least requirements to making and marketing stories for the world market.

“We need to go beyond including one Canadian and one Indian character. We need to make global stories,” Sahi, who is developing The King of Car Thieves, a Canada-India coproduction between The Film Works in Toronto and Ketan Mehta of mayamovies of Mumbai.

Mehta, who was also in Whistler taking part in a panel on Canada-India coproductions, said India, a country with a billion-plus domestic audience, is in part too saturated with tentpole movies – Bollywood and to a lesser extent, Hollywood. The result is indie films are hard-pressed to reach Indian audiences.  

And the dominant commercial strategy in India, he added, is remaking tentpole Indian films for the 22 regional language markets in the country, rather than push to make indie films. 

“That margin for indie cinema and non-Hollywood films has decreased. The European film margin is very small,” he explained.

At the same time, pay TV channels and the internet have allowed younger Indians to see more international cinema.

“The audiences are getting receptive to different ideas, and they are more aware of cinematic trends around the world,” Mehta said.

And that has opened the way for increased collaboration between Indian and Canadian producers.

He said both Canada and India have film industries that came late to the world market.

“Both of us for different reasons ignored the global market. Indians were so happy with their one billion customers and didn’t feel the need to look out. And Canada with its subsidies was protected from global risks,” Mehta observed.

No more, as indie film sectors in both countries feel the need to combine forces to make movies for the world market for bigger budgets and added territorial sales.

“Canada is much closer to the west culturally, and it’s the only truly multicultural country I know of. We can come up with stories that can speak to the global market,” Mehta said.

Raymond Massey, a Vancouver-based producer with Massey Productions, has mostly worked on Chinese movie projects.

But two years ago he broke into the Indian market with Phantom, a feature he did production services for in Vancouver over a 10-day shoot for Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment.

The movie starred Bollywood stars Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif, and was directed by Kabir Khan.

It also opened doors for Massey. “I was warned that word would get round [that he’d worked with Nadiadwala Grandson and] I would probably get other contacts. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing,” Massey told the film festival.

Massey warns, however, big Bollywood players aren’t interested in coproductions.

“They have the money. They don’t need our money,” he told the Whistler panel, adding they can finance their own movies, use big actors, and not share the copyright with a Canadian partner.

Smaller Indian indies, on the other hand, are interested in coproductions precisely because they don’t have deep pockets of their own.

“We’re just sitting around a table with no money trying to figure out how to make a film,” Massey said.

The Whistler Film Festival continues through Sunday.

Photo: Nellie (Lillette Dubey) and Deepak (Vinay Virmani) in Dr. Cabbie; the film’s writer Manu Chopra also spoke on Thursday’s panel.