Visit Flanders recently hosted a special evening in Mumbai to promote Bruges through the upcoming Bollywood film PK, the first Indian film to be shot in the city. The event, hosted by Mileage Communications, which represents Flanders in India, and the Consulate General of Belgium, invited film producer Rajkumar Hirani and his team to speak about the destination and their experience filming at the location, in a bid to promote the city as a tourist destination for Indian travellers.
Speaking about facilitating film shootings in the country, Karl Van den Bossche, Consul General, Consulate General of Belgium stated that the country has Location Flanders and the Flanders Film and Television Commission that can connect the producers with the right suppliers, onsite professional crews, help with permissions, provide competitive hotel rates and so on.
“We are also able to hook the producers up with subsidies to shoot in Belgium, but that requires the producer to go in for a co-production agreement with a Belgian producer, making it a completely different ballgame. We have a tax shelter system, which is specifically being devised by our Ministry of Finance for media companies to establish a Belgian entity that the producers can then use to channel all costs, and through the same, deduct 150 per cent of the production costs incurred. It is a bit of a virtual arrangement, but it is allowed and very helpful in a co-production scenario,” said Van den Bossche.
According to Van den Bossche, Hirani took the former route, and the Consulate provided as much help as they could to facilitate the same, by reserving the crew’s train tickets, getting them good rates on Jet Airways for transportation of the crew and equipment, waiving their visa processing fee and so on.
Sunil Puri, Managing Director, Visit Flanders, Tourism Office of Flanders & Brussels (Belgium) in India revealed that they will continue to promote the film PK post its release as well through mainline media and contests, as well as work with travel agents to design itineraries to accommodate the locations in Bruges that are shown in the film. “We have also taken a group of producers to Bruges to showcase it as an ideal location for film shootings, as well as highlighting Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent for the same,” he added.
Speaking about Bruges as an ideal destination for the market, the hosts highlighted the city’s reputation as a chocolate haven, its unique fries museum, it’s myriad of Indian restaurants, breweries and beer route, major world heritage sites and the Belfry, as some of the attractions it offers. Divulging his reason for choosing the city as a location for the film, Hirani revealed that the city had the perfect blend of all the popular European attractions – the old town feel, cobblestone streets and the picturesque canal, in one place, saving the crew the need to travel across Europe to shoot bits and pieces in different cities.
