All About Animela: India's First International Festival For Animation Films, Gaming, VFX, XR & Comics

Kireet Khurana, Director, Aniverse and Visual Arts Foundation is working in the AVGC space, visual fx, gaming and comic space with the aim of creating India’s first AVGC XR Festival to celebrate Indian Animation and making India first. His vision is to take India to the global stage. Here are some excerpts from his exclusive interview with BW Applause and Everything Experiential

Give me a sense of AniMela and the people behind it and a little bit of background on that?

Kireet: We have the world’s largest film industry, which is Bollywood and off course we know how prominent that is in terms of the Indian psyche and how our whole story is how we are reaching out globally as well on that. Similarly, in the AVGC space, which is the animation, visual fx, gaming and the comic space, we are pretty prominent in the world. But we're predominantly a service providing economy which is we are the back office in the world. The idea of AniMela is to create India's first AVGC XR Festival, which is to celebrate Indian animation, to make India first and we'll see how we can bring the world to India and create our own story and take it to the world. We have some great emerging talent within the country, but they need mentorship, they need the platform, they need to understand a little bit of the business of animation. They need the right type of space to create their own IP, their own stories, that can actually become part of the world ecosystem in the AVGC space and that is what AniMela is all about. And we're tying up with Annecy, which is the world's largest Animation film festival. Which has representation from more than 100 countries. It is the biggest festival in the world and is like the Cannes of Animation. What Cannes mean to live action, AniMela means to animation and MIFA which is the market place where most of the top broadcasters, co-producers, financiers and film makers pitch their ideas and they get greenlit over there. So this is a platform and ecosystem that we intend to create with Animela, that will transform the AVGC space within India.

Who can participate in this?

Kireet: so essentially it is for all general audiences.  we will have experience with zones, and knowledge sessions, we will have a film festival and we will have gaming zones as well as a networking space as well. So pretty much it is open to everybody. But more specifically, the biggest beneficiary of this will be animation enthusiasts, storytellers, aspiring animation filmmakers, and aspiring storytellers. These are the people who will be the prime beneficiary out of the ecosystem that we create, along with collaboration with Annecy.

What will the calendar be like between the launch which is happening now in February and the film festival in November?

Kireet: We will be doing the film festival in mid-November most likely in Mumbai, NCPA. And in between this period obviously we will be prepping the whole thing for the festival, to make sure all the elements are in place. We already have got great support from the Animation and Gaming industry. Some of the top players are already supporting us financially and otherwise, in every way to make sure that this venture and initiative that is actually made for the industry or for the emerging talent so we have a greater sense of camaraderie, partnership and collaboration with the industry.

Are there any sponsors on board, any brand ambassadors?

Kireet: so we are right now about 10-12 sponsors who are chipped in for the launch. We're talking to some of the biggest brands and the top MNCs, IT companies as well as software and hardware solution providers who provide gaming engines and gaming machines, and software for the gaming and animation industry, we are already in discussion with them at this point. We are funded by 10-12 top studios in India 

What about international studios and developers? Have you got any response from them?

Kireet: we have Annecy with us, which is the biggest and the best. Off Course, we also have an Animator festival from Poland. But once you have Annecy on board, as they have participation from more than 100 countries and more than 15,000 visits, the idea is that with them on board everything falls into place.

When you look at India from a Global perspective, when it comes to Animation and Gaming, you think we are prepared to compete at the global front? What is the kind of perception that India has when it comes to gaming and animation?

Kireet: I will give you statistics. So India is $1.4 billion right now as far as animation is concerned. Okay, that's the size of our industry. When compared with the word industry size, it is $800 billion in size. We are barely 0.2%. And the government has come up with the AVGC policy which says that we need to go up to $40 billion, which is 5% of the of the global. Now that is an Ambitious target to achieve 40 billion by 2030 As per the AVGV policy envisaged by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and govt of India, can only happen through service providing. Essentially the industry is in a very similar space right now what 10 years or 15 years ago the IT industry was, which was predominantly service providing industry and moving up the value chain to create their own products. Today India is one of the largest startups in the world, in the IT space. That happened because critical mass was built by service providing in the IT industry. In the AVGC space we are exactly in the same spot, in 2023. 

Which is that we are poised to unlock value because we can go up the value chain and not just be a service provider.  And the idea is that was that for us to unlock that $40 billion. We need to be creators rather than just service providers. We cannot be an end source. We will need to be something much larger than what we are. We'll need to see an exponential growth. And for that, we need to go up the value chain and we need creative entrepreneurs and creative people that we need to back them up with the right kind of mentorship, right kind of stories. They will come up the with the stories, we need to give them the right training the right kind of mentorship platform so that they can own their storytelling skills, own their creativity, own their art and create projects that will employ more people under them and can become internationally appealing IPs. 

One more thing is that you talked about the brand ambassador we don't have one. We do have, Subhash Ghai, on our board as the Governing Council is helping us with his vision and guiding us and so he is part of us apart from people who are the biggest and the most prominent people in the AVGC sector. 

Would also like to know, how they see India from the international perspective of Mickael from Annecy?

Mickael: why we are on board is because more recently we have good Indian movies and conventions, which was not the case in the past. Because as a kid said it was more of a Prediction Service country and we had some very good shots in competition just for you to understand each year we receive around 3000 movies from all over the world we have around 200 winning competitions. So when you are selecting it’s because your movies are really good. And we believe that there is a new wave of talent here in this country. And we are on board because we want help these talents who want to help India, to be more successful in the global market

Kireet: it's a big honor and a privilege for AniMela India to be associated with a global platform festival like Annecy

and we're very thankful to Mickael and Veronique for personally coming for the launch, forand  helping the Indian ecosystem grow, which is very crucial for India’s AVGC sectors growth.