NFDC’s film Bazaar: Panelists discuss the trend of remakes and its pitfalls

At NFDC’s film Bazaar in goa, panelists discuss the trend of remakes and its pitfalls

Panelists at the discussion on ‘Remakes:Creative and Financial Viability’

Are remakes a brave new world or simply playing it safe? Will it give a fillip to quality cinema or spell the death of creativity? With big business houses preferring to park their money in remakes given their safety net in terms of success, where do the younger scriptwriters with out-of-the-box ideas go? And finally, forget about creative liberties, is the whole business legit?

Remakes have obviously become big enough for National Film Development Corporation’s Film Bazaar — which is held annually alongside the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa — to inaugurate their “Knowledge” series on Friday with a discussion on the contentious issue. Titled “Remakes — Creative and Financial Viability”, the discussion was backed by the fact that 22 titles have been put up at the Bazaar as “Available for Remakes”. These include Italian, French, German, Spanish and Latvian films along with Bengali and Hindi titles. Prominent among them are Satyajit Ray’s Agantuk, Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Fernando Di Leo’s Milano Calibro 9 and Cristiano Bortone’s Rosso Come Ilcieo.

The trend is clearly also big enough for Deborah Benattar, founder of La Fabrique films, who facilitates the sale of foreign remake rights to Indian producers, to be present at the panel discussion. According to her, with a new Hindi film releasing in France every two to three weeks, the cinematic exchange between France and India is on an unprecedented high. This has shot up the demand from Indian makers for remaking French films.

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Ironically, Amar Butala, who has worked on Hindi adaptations of popular French films Priceless and Love Me If You Dare for UTV-Disney India, is not gung-ho about this trend. He said, “It does reflect a dearth of original scripts and I can understand why young writers feel threatened about it.” Bollywood’s Rohan Sippy, whose Nautanki Saala! (2012) was a remake of a 2003 French comedy, Apres Vous, said that, as long as one produced an improved version, with added creativity, remakes made perfect sense.

Advocate Ameet Naik, whose firm specialises in media and entertainment cases, not just added the legal angle to the discussion but also apprised the audience of the moral right — as against merely the copyright issue — that can haul the maker to the court over mutilation of the original work. This is perhaps the more common grouse today. A case in point being Sai Paranjpye’s lawsuit against those who remade her iconic Chashme Buddoor.

Nyaya Bhushan, India correspondent of The Hollywood Reporter, who moderated the discussion, rounded it off by acknowledging that the trend was not likely to go away anytime soon and it was up to the industry to find the comfort zone between safe business interests and encouraging creativity.

Speaking to The Indian Express after the panel discussion, Rohan said filmmakers should add to the original. “I was drawn to Apres Vous for its theme and the nucleus of the story. When we adapted it, we changed its setting from a bistro to a theatre. My redemption came when Apres Vous’ director told me: ‘I am jealous of this remake,’” says Sippy.

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For the same reason, he would never remake his father Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay. He believes Sholay is too perfect to be improved upon. Incidentally, Sippy senior is making a comeback after a 20 years with Shimla Mirchi, a remake of French movie Beautiful Lies.

Rohan did concede that the trend is not very healthy for the industry that thrives on creative pursuits but is inescapable. “Remakes, which are driven by the big money involved and financiers, have spurred several discussions. Earlier filmmakers had to figure out business, now business persons are figuring out films,” he said.

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