MUMBAI -- India is on course to expand its bilateral co-production treaties for the film industry this year. 

Even before these pass into law, the Indian biz is finding a welcome in more places.

Yash Chopra, chairman of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry's entertainment committee, said the country is in the process of signing treaties that establish formal links between the Indian movie sector and those of Germany, Italy and the U.K.

But it was left to producer Ricardo Tozzi to remind delegates at the FICCI-Frames convention that the Indo-Italian treaty, which would allow Indian films to qualify for Italian subsidy, has been signed, but not yet ratified.

Italian minister of communications, Paolo Gentiloni Silveri, said he looked forward to many more co-productions between the two countries following ratification. But he gave no indication of the timing.

Similarly, while Chopra said the British document would be signed in the second or third week of May -- hinting at a Cannes ceremony -- reps of the U.K. Film Council in Mumbai said no date had yet been set.

Indian minister for Information and Broadcasting, Priyaranjan Dasmunshi said a treaty with Germany was signed Feb. 16.

Goffredo Bettini, head of the Rome Cinema Foundation, said India would be the focus of the Rome festival in October. He added that there were already four major Indian-Italo co-productions lining up to use the new treaty.

John Ross, exec at the mayor of London's office, said the British capital would host India Now, a three-month festival of Indian culture that wraps in September with a major street fair in the West End's Regent Street.

© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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