Net to spread Indian films' reach: Kapur

"A R Rahman spends two months on creating one perfect song and people take two minutes to download its shoddy version".

This is how film director Shekhar Kapur described Indian films' reach to the global world.

Speaking at 'Connecting India to the World: the Role of Media and Entertainment', one of the sessions at Ficci-Frames 2007, Kapur, along with Amit Khanna, chairman, Reliance Entertainment, and director Farhan Akhtar, agreed that spaces like YouTube were contributing to a wider reach of Indian films.

"Within the next five years," Kapur said, "new media spaces like YouTube and MySpace, by virtue of being democratic platforms, will cater to content brought out of India."

He added that in a few years' time, when Superman took his mask off, he would be a Chinese sitting in Mumbai.

Besides Internet space, the panel also discussed the role of co-productions (a favourite theme at Ficci-Frames 2007) that could be a potential driver for Indian films in the international market.

Kapur cited examples of how his film Bandit Queen benefited when he approached Channel 4, especially as everyone in India had refused to fund it.