Big Music & Home plans Bengali film foray

The fate of Bengali movies is set to change, if Reliance ADAG's Big Music and Home Entertainment's plans are anything to go by.

Reliance plans to revive the Bengali movie industry at par with other regions like the South Indian movie market which is estimated to be double the size of Hindi movies in India.

The company is planning to set up multiplexes in Bengal as well as buy a few of the existing dilapidated standalone multiplexes in the state and redo them.

This apart, Reliance is also talking to some of the renowned Bengali actors, directors and artists in Bengal, like Prasenjit, Rituparno Ghosh and others, to make and produce big-ticket movies with them.

Kulmeet Makkar, chief executive officer of Big Music and Home Entertainment said, "Bengali movies don't have much of a fan-following because they look shabby due to limited monetary investment into its creation and promotion. The most expensive Bengali movie will be made with a budget of Rs 3 crore, while other regional movies like the ones in Tamil will have a budget of Rs 40 crore."

Reliance is also looking at a 50 per cent market share of the Rs 40 crore Bengali home video market.

About 70 Bengali movies are released every year and are produced with a budget of Rs 2 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore per movie, according to market data.

"We are looking at acquiring home video rights of close to 25 Bengali movies every year. Of these, we will also acquire rights of close to 10 film music albums," Makkar said.

In non-filmy Bengali music albums, Reliance is planning to create close to 20 music albums a year. These would be combination of music videos and audio CDs and DVDs.

The company also plans to introduce compilations of Rabindra Tagore poetry, music awards, and live performances, in home entertainment format.

The company also plans to promote Bengali bands, music and theatre artists.

"We plan to revive Bengali film music. So we are looking at promoting about four Bengali bands initially of the 10 to 12 Bengali bands existing in Bengal. We are also talking to various singers and musicians in Bengal to make music albums with them. These would be available across all Reliance communications platforms like the radio and mobile," Makkar said.

It has already signed Bengali band Chandrabindoo with whom it will create music albums. The content will also be made available for download on Reliance mobiles.

The company is also in the process of signing close to 12 Bengali artists for Bengali music albums and for performances that would be packed in CDs and DVDs.