IFFF and Hitron announce joint venture to provide fully film production services

March 28, 2015 - PRLog -- Partnership Will Strengthen  Bollywood Film Production

(Beverly Hills, Calif., and Mumbai, India – Festival De Cannes) March 28, 2015 – Indo French Film Finance Forum LLC (“IFFF”), a next-generation film finance company, and Hitron, a leading Bollywood film and television network whose major shareholders include Parasant Rana, Jyotika Bansal and Aashika Kapoor, announced today that the companies have formed a new joint venture that will leverage their combined expertise, relationships and resources to create and distribute highly-engaging long and short form entertainment, sports and film content in India that will span a variety of mediums including film, television and digital.

Rapid urbanization, multiplex growth and increasingly sophisticated production and marketing techniques continue to drive growth in the Indian content market.  Capitalizing on the significant growth potential of the Indian film and television markets, which are expected to reach revenues of INR 300 crore  (3 Billion Rupees)  by 2016, respectively, the joint venture will provide an innovative platform to IFFF in Hitron to co-invest and distribute local Bollywood film and television productions.  In addition, the joint venture will distribute and market IFFF’s films, beginning with the romantic drama PRAKAT, in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.

“This strategic partnership represents an exciting opportunity for IFFF to significantly expand our presence into the film production and finance sector of this vibrant and growing marketplace while creating a bridge for developing and sharing content between Hollywood and Bollywood,” said Vinay Bajaj, CEO of IFFF.  “By 2020, India is set to become the world’s youngest country, and its citizens are adopting new technology platforms  – from smartphones to smart TVs – at a dramatic rate.  We are especially excited to work with Hitron and its impressive management team led by Prasant Rana, and this joint venture positions us well to deliver enthralling content across rapidly emerging distribution channels.”

Prasant Rana, CEO of Hitron, said: “Hitron has always been at the helm for delivering Bollywood and Event content in India and internationally.  This joint venture with IFFF is the natural step in our progression to build a creative film studio or production house and unique inhouse technology platform.  Our joint venture provides a platform to bring the best of IFFF’s intellectual property, finance skills, and unique monetizing strategies to India, while also providing finance to develop the films or entertainment ontent.  Vinay’s vision and leadership, combined with the IFFF management team’s deep industry experience, makes them our ideal partners.”

Joint Venture Structure

The newly formed joint venture will:

3 Billion Rupees investment into Hitron for the film production and inhouse production facility development
Co-finance, co-produce and distribute Indian language films and television shows as well as acquire projects in the European and Indian markets
Distribute third-party content in India and select Bollywood films in the Europe.
Launch “Film City" Project near Jaipur by 2017
Distribution rights to MGM
4 films a year, must be produced.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed; however, the joint venture will have an investment of approximately Rs 3 Billion (300 Crore) available for projects.  The joint venture will be managed by Hitron Chief Executive Officer Prasant Rana and will be overseen by a Board of Directors, to which both companies will appoint two directors.

Upcoming Productions in India

Hitron going to produce 4 films in a year.

Prakat is the first step they are doing.

In addition, the joint venture will make a Film City near Jaipur by 2017 which includes all facilities of film production or film location services. This city comes up with a residential scheme too.

We hope this will be a step to create a perfect relation into the Indian and International Film Production Projects. In step to this, we are having a party to make all contracts and information available on 27th April at Paris.