Shillong, July 10: The Meghalaya government has taken a significant step towards promoting the state’s film industry with the approval of the Meghalaya Film Tourism Policy 2025.
Tourism Minister Paul Lyngdoh said the policy aims to establish Meghalaya as a hub for filmmaking in the North East and develop robust infrastructure across the state.
Addressing media persons today after a cabinet meeting, Lyngdoh said the Draft Meghalaya Film Tourism Policy 2025 was released by Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma and himself three months back where the government had sought valuable inputs from all stakeholders.
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Over 200 such inputs from various stakeholders including local film makers and producers were received and incorporated in the policy. “Today we brought the policy before the cabinet. There was a detailed and intense discussion after which the cabinet had approved this policy. This is a major step forward in ensuring that we open up Meghalaya in a huge way through film tourism,” he also said.
Lyngdoh highlighted that the Meghalaya Film Tourism Policy seeks to focus on the fact that Meghalaya has huge potential to attract filmmakers from across the world.
“We would like to promote national and international film media production and also to establish Meghalaya as a hub for film making in the North East and also to develop a robust infrastructure across the state,” he said.
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He informed that a dedicated agency “Film Facilitation Cell” will be set up to synergize efforts between departments, including tourism, arts and culture, and DIPR, to promote Meghalaya as a major destination for movies both regional, national and even international.
The minister also announced subsidy support of up to Rs. 1 crore or 25 per cent of the total cost of the film will be provided for films made in major national languages and international languages, with at least 75 percent of shooting days in Meghalaya.
“We have decided to incentivize filmmaking in Meghalaya, where various slabs of movies will receive support through subsidies. For instance, I will give you one example where films made in major national languages and even international languages, which have the potential to push Meghalaya’s tourism sector will receive subsidy support of up to Rs. 1 crore or 25 per cent of the total cost of the film and to qualify for that they need to have at least 75 per cent of the total shooting days within the state of Meghalaya and that too outdoors meaning they should depict, project our natural beauty, tourism destinations both known and unknown.”
Also announcing support to local cinema, Lyngdoh said, “I am happy to share with you that local film producers in Khasi, Pnar and Garo languages will be allocated subsidy support of Rs. 50 lakh for which each filmmaker will avail this incentive once in every two years.”
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He added that there will also be support for making and the production of TV serials and shows, web series and original shows to be displayed on OTT platform, Hello Meghalaya App, which is the only government funded OTT platform in the country.
“There will be grants for documentary films shot in Meghalaya, grants for short films shot in Meghalaya, financial subsidy and infrastructure development,” the minister said while also announcing the decision of the government to come up with a film studio, which has been a long pending demand of stakeholders.
“All of these various interventions will be scrutinized at the level of this committee, which is the Film Facilitation Cell,” he concluded.
(Newmai News Network)