Roxas City — Bollywood movies will be produced by Indian filmmakers in the Philippines within the year using the country’s beautiful scenery and alternative location sites as setting.

Bollywood is the Indian version of Hollywood and the largest film industry in the world which is producing some 1,000 films each year.

The plan to promote the country’s beautiful sceneries through films was realized during President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s visit to India early this month.

The President has invited Indian filmmakers during their courtesy call on her in Mumbai to consider the Philippines as an alternative site for producing Bollywood films.

A visit to the country to look for film locations will be conducted by the Bollywood members before the end of the year.

The President said that the leading producer, Aditya Raj Kapoor has committed to make a movie in the Philippines within a year.

The Philippines offers fine location sites, creative Filipino talents, post production houses and studios, and other technical and logistics requirements for the Indian film production outfit.

In an earlier interview, Viva Films chief executive officer Vic del Rosario said the Philippines could take advantage of the huge market of India, having a population of some 1.1 billion, next only to China’s 1.3 billion people.

Del Rosario said the Philippines could develop and offer alternative production sites for foreign filmmakers in Subic and Clark such as the Fantasia Philippines.

Thomas Puig, chief executive officer of Compressor Films that was involved in the production of the top-grosser film “Pirates of the Caribbean,” added that his company is eyeing alternative production and location sites such as Fantasia’s giant water tank and the scenic islands and water areas in the country.

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