Picture this.
A guy walks into the narrow shopping alleys behind Friendship Sarees in Santa Cruz West. He selects 200 bandhani stoles and dupattas. While they are being packed, he crosses the road, where two dozen large packs of colourful bindis with sequins and mirror work await him at a bindi shop. Then the next store, specialising in novelty items. Two dozen mini trays in gold foil, shaped like ethnic Indian motifs.
He gets a call. On the other end is the studio head of one of the world’s prominent animation studios based out of India, 1,500+ artists working on state-of-the-art global projects. He says, “You got the artwork for my banner.”
Cut to twelve Canadian animation studio heads in the Indian Pavilion, doing speed dating with the Indian studios that have joined the Indian Animation Pavilion organised by Anand Gurnani Media. The year is 2014. The number grows to twenty-four, then thirty, in the subsequent years.
The Royal Indian Reception, for which the organiser was shopping, becomes a landmark event. Every Indian studio head does a cultural exchange, treating the hundreds of international studio heads who have gathered at the reception to Indian delicacies and warmth.
Annecy has been, and will be, one of my most cherished and unending love affairs. The lake. The town. The MIFA market. And most of all, the people behind the great festival and the market, who lead it with as beautiful a mind as the beautiful art and animation inherent in the region.
Thanks to the very visionary and very culturally nuanced leadership at Annecy and MIFA, I wore a double hat, first, as the organiser of the Indian Animation Pavilion for seven years, and alongside that, as India and Southeast Asia representative for ten years. With the very powerful support of team MIFA, and the most dynamic and awesome ecosystem in the world, the Indian animation and VFX ecosystem.
As one of the most recognised Indian animation personalities at the world’s largest animation festival and market, and an evangelist of Indian animation globally, I saw it as my duty that when I organised the Indian Pavilion, every studio participating had the maximum number of interfaces, introductions, meetings, showcasing, and opportunity for deal-making, whether original IPs, co-production deals, or production service contracts.
It was always a great joy to watch Team India perform so exceptionally well at Annecy. A big thank you to the leaders and all my wonderful colleagues at MIFA and CITIA, particularly Mickael Marin, Véronique Encrenaz, and team.
Organising the Indian Animation Pavilion for seven consecutive years was one of the greatest honours of my life. Serving as the India and Southeast Asia representative from 2011 to 2020 for the world’s largest animation market and trade fair, not only the largest, but one of the most amazing, essential, and path-defining festivals and markets in the world, was one of the deepest privileges of my career.
Eternally grateful for both these long-lasting opportunities.
