Documentary film makers enter into 5-year contract with DD National

The Independent Documentary Producers' Association (IDPA) has signed a 5-year contract with Doordarshan to showcase documentaries from all across India. Disclosing this at a press conference, IDPA president and documentary film maker Mike Pandey called it a major achievement.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 45th IFFI in Goa today, Mike Pandey said that the association has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with DD National, and under the MOU, the documentary makers will be paid substantially, which will help them recover their costs to some extent.

Explaining the significance of documentary films, Mike Pandey said that they have an educational purpose and must be promoted in partnership with the government as well as banks / institutions under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

For this, he said, the IDPA proposes to approach the government to set up a TV channel for value-based educational films for which the IDPA will partner with the government and various other agencies. Such a channel will help to achieve better programmes like Swachhta Abhiyan, women's and children's health, environment conservation and other social causes by showcasing them with the help of documentaries, he added.

Pandey said the IDPA is trying to create a Welfare Trust for Independent Producers to help them in times of distress. The documentary film makers are educators of future, and what they are capturing today will be part of history tomorrow, he said, pointing out the case of the documentary films on Jawahar Lal Nehru.

Accordingly, the IDPA plans to hold festivals in universities across India, he added. Mike Pandey said that they are willing to create IDPA centres in states for regular screening of documentary films.

He urged the organisers of IFFI to give opportunity to documentary film makers to showcase their films at the IFFI, for which a documentary lounge should be created to enable buyers and other film makers to view the films, discuss and negotiate. Documentary film makers should also be honoured and given awards at the IFFI, he added.

Answering a question on agreements for co-production with foreign film makers, Pandey said that several bottlenecks exist like difficulties in getting clearances and double taxation among others.