Hong Kong: Indian buyers at the 13th edition of Filmart in Hong Kong are a dissatisfied lot this year.

“There are very few action films of the kind that are popular in India on offer at Filmart this year,” says a regular buyer at film markets such as Filmart and Cannes. “There are a number of subtle factors involved in the decision to buy films at Hong Kong,” he added.

“While there are fewer cinema goers because of the meltdown, the price of movie rights has not gone down this year. In some cases, the charges have gone up,” revealed another film buyer.

Jackie Chan’s diminishing popularity in India is another important deterrence for buyers from India. His type of films are either too expensive or not viable. “Viewer fatigue with Jackie Chan and martial arts movies has started happening in India,” said an Indian buyer from South India.

“The really big films that will be well accepted will have buyers, and the sellers of big films generally provide the buyer with a reverse negative print. But Indian film buyers will be selective in picking up small films,” said a buyer from Mumbai.

Another big bugbear for Indian buyers at Filmart is conversion of the films that are hawked here. Very few of the sellers have the films in the internegative format. Most sellers at Filmart generally provide the movies on HDCAM or DigiBeta format.

Indian buyers need the content on Reverse Negatives (RN), since very few Indian theatres run movies using digital projection. Cost of conversion, though lower in India, could adversely affect the viability of screening the film in the Indian sub-continent.

“I know of buyers from India who are still sitting on the films that they purchased rights for during the last edition of Filmart because conversion and dubbing is a big cost factor. Quality dubbing in the different Indian languages also affects the profitability,” said another Indian buyer.