Making Movies: Bobby Bedi, India

• Author: Sylvie Castonguay
• Position: WIPO Magazine Editorial Staff, Communications and Public Outreach Division

Biodata

Born: 1956, New Delhi, India

Education: Masters Degree in Management, University of Bombay, BA in Economics, University of Delhi

Professional activities: Film producer; Founder and Managing Director of Kaleidoscope Entertainment in Mumbai; Advisor to the Industrial Development Bank of India and India's Minister of Information and Broadcasting; Member of the Governing Council of the Film & Television Institute of India; Founder of the "School of Convergence," India's first post-graduate school teaching content creation and management

Film achievements: Ten feature films, including Bandit Queen, Fire, Saathiya, Maqbool, American Daylight, The Rising; received two National Awards from President of India

Bollywood evokes instant images among movie fans: music, dance, Indian traditions and brilliantly colored costumes. With some four billion tickets sold annually - one billion more than Hollywood - India's film industry is the largest in the world, enjoying immense popularity from Southeast Asia to Africa, from Eastern Europe to the Middle East.

Among the prolific creators in the Indian film industry is Bobby Bedi, a film producer from Mumbai^*. His film, Bandit Queen, won critical acclaim at the Cannes Festival in 1994. The film broke the mold of mainstream Bollywood movies, and generated a fair share of controversy, portraying the plight of Phoolan Devi, a real life character who fought against the exploitation of India's poorest. In 2003, he released The Rising, a historical epic on the rebellion of native soldiers serving under British rule in the late 19th Century. Bobby Bedi is also a strong advocate for the recognition and enforcement of intellectual property rights, as he explains in this interview with WIPO Magazine.

Your initial training was in the field of finance. What first attracted you to the film industry?

I had worked with Philips and Sony after my MBA so there had been a fair amount of exposure to the entertainment sector - albeit from the hardware side. Film is an industry where order needs to exist side by side with chaos - and the whole idea of bringing order in the lives of a bunch of "mad" people, and yet be able to create good stuff, was a challenge.

What highs and lows have you experienced as a filmmaker?

The success, critical or financial, can be a great high. Sometimes the two go off together. That is easily the best high and we experienced it with...