The market was pretty sluggish but witnessed a marginal improvement as compared to Days 1 & 2. Ashok Amritraj's Hyde Park Entertainment group announced the setting up of a multi-million dollar fund to complement the company's new Hyde Park Asia Division. Hyde Park has a three-picture deal with Adlabs Films and a separate deal for animation pictures with the Kerala-based Toonz. Reliance ADAG, well represented by a number of officials, had a conference to announce tie-ups with US and Asian financing and talent - details about the deployment of funds, ROI and nature of projects should emerge on the news wires soon. The Indian Film Company-Studio 18 was in the news across the trades for its German and Polish sales deals of the 2007 blockbusters, Jab We Met and Welcome. "Met meets with sales," said Variety. "Studio 18 goes beyond borders..." roared a headline in the Cannes Market News, "Studio 18 lands Jab on new territories," stated Screen International. The Indian Film Company-Studio 18 also announced its fully financed venture, Road, Movie, an Indo-American dramedy to be produced by the Academy-Award nominated Ross Katz (Lost In Translation) and directed by Dev Benegal. The film, somewhere between Cinema Paradiso and Little Miss Sunshine, will star Abhay Deol and Satish Kaushik among others and be shot largely in Rajasthan. Production is likely to kick off in August and other top credits are waiting to be finalised. The script of the film was an official selection at Cinefondation 2006, Festival De Cannes. Eros International announced a 100-film deal with online platform, Jaman. A number of filmmakers like Ritesh Sidhwani, Abhishek Kapoor, Jahnu Barua, Jag Mundhra and Ketan Mehta, to name a few, have been doing the rounds of the market. (Media and international business expert, Tanuj Garg, will do an honorary Cannes 2008 diary for Bollywood Hungama. This will feature periodic updates on the mood and the action on The Croisette over the next fortnight. Tanuj is currently Marketing & Distribution Head for the UK & Europe at Studio 18) ... read more »