CANNES: He is at the Cannes Film Festival for the umpteenth time. And Kishore Lulla is on a high. Sitting in his yacht by the Garre Maritime on a very hot and sunny afternoon clad in a comfortable white kurti, a little away from the Palais des Festivals, he is busy doing what he does best, multitasking.

On the one hand, he is speaking to the head of a TV festival explaining his company's strategy, on the other he is giving an interview to Amit Roy of The Telegraph, and on the third he is speaking to his wife Manju and his daughter Riddhima who celebrates her birthday on 20 May. He is also having lunch with numerous other business associates who have dropped in to say hello to a man who has singlehandedly pushed Indian cinema across the globe. And he does all this with the greatest of ease.

The boss of the UK headquartered Eros group, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, got his company listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in London last year and has seen its valuation increase to $1 billion in double quick time. With a library of 1,300 films, he believes that the world is going to come to India, India need not chase the world.

Kishore Lulla

"There is no need for us to do coproductions with Hollywood studios," he espouses. "The timing is not right. Currently India is buzzing. The entertainment industry has grown beyond all expectations, and it will grow even faster, beating all expectations. Expect it to gross more than 50-70 billion dollars in the next five to seven years, and expect an Indian movie to gross $100 million at the box office even earlier than that. The number of screens will go up, thanks to the retail explosion, the ticket prices will go up. We want a piece of that action. Hence, our content strategy is very India focused, and not focusing on creating content for International audiences."

Many of Hollywood's studios are approaching him with coproduction offers, he points out. But because the risk is too high with Hollywood cinema, he wants to stay away for now. "The budgets are high, and the returns are at risk," he says. "Instead India appears more attractive."

He is putting his money where his mouth his. he has signed up a slew of Indian directors and producers to work exclusively with his group. Among them: Abbas Mastan, Anil Kapoor Productions, and Sajid Nadiadwala. "We will be rolling out around 52 movies in the next 26 months," he says. That's two movies a month being released, which will clearly polevault him into a different league.

On the international sales front, he is looking at exposing more non-traditional markets to his catalogue. "We have had success with Poland, Germany, and other European markets," he points out. "We want more such outlets to be developed. He is very excited about a recent VoD deal he did with RTL in Germany. "Germans are downloading Indian movies and watching them," he says. "They watch the Da Vinci Code in German and they are watching Indian cinema in German.That's really great."

His vision for his group. Says he: "Eros will be both vertically and horizontally integrated. First vertically and then horizontally. Whether it is in television, internet or theatrical, or the mobile or even media outsourcing, we want to be there. And it is going to be a very important player and studio in the business. The focus is always going to be on content."

The 21st is an important day for Lulla. He will be premiering the film Cheeni Kum at one of the theatres. Thespian and the most famous Indian Amitabh Bachchan is expected at the premiere, marking a landmark for him. "We expect the film to get a good response," Lulla says.