Marketing movies for children still a challenge: Nandita Das

"Today everything has become marketing oriented. To carry out marketing activities for children's films is not easy. We need to have sufficient budget for it. Finding distributors and exhibitors is another problem as they eye good returns on films," Das told PTI here.

"We are not as luxurious as the commercial Bollywood films. To be in the same pond the need of the hour is that we need to be creative, enhance our marketing skills and increase our marketing budget," she said.
CFSI is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting which covers the entire gamut of children's films.

"As we intend to have theatrical release of these movies, apart from urging the government to increase the funds, we are looking at options like Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) for raising funds, sponsorships, roping in TV channels to show the films and others," Nandita said.

The government has this year provided an annual grant aid of Rs 4 crore to CFSI, CEO of CFSI and Director of General Films Division, Kuldeep Sinha said.

Nandita lamented that not many filmmakers are interested in making movies for children.

"Not enough filmmakers are interested in making children's films. The main reason is that the economics affects the distribution of the film. In India, children's films are not very viable commercially," she said.

To lure children, CFSI has in collaboration with Films Division come up with a 'Summer Bonanza' under which screening of a special package of children films will be screened throughout the month of May free of cost.
"In the Summer Bonanza we have films of all genres from adventure to comedy to action to animation to wildlife. We are taking help of NGO's to reach to children. Right from underprivileged to street children to those from public and private schools are invited here to see films," Nandita said.

Over 20 films including 'Krish Trish and Baltiboy', Shyam Benegal's classic 'Charandas Chor', Santosh Sivan's thriller 'Halo' and Pankaj Advani's 'Sunday' will be screened from May 3-31 at the Films Division auditorium.
Our intention is to make fun and entertaining films for children, Nandita said.