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Vistaar Religare Film Fund Invests $1 Mn In ’Victory’

By Pallavi S

  • 05 Jan 2009

Vistaar Religare Film Fund, the country's first regulated film fund, has struck its maiden deal. It is investing around Rs 5 crore ($1 million) to pick up a minority stake in the movie 'Victory'. VCCircle has confirmed this deal with the fund. The fund, which is sponsored by Vistaar Entertainment and financial services firm Religare with a corpus of Rs 200 crore, will pay the amount for print and advertising campaigns for marketing the movie, making it a one of its kind deal for Bollywood.

Victory, a movie based on the game of cricket features new comer Harman Baweja (who made his debut last year with Love Story 2050 opposite Priyanka Chopra) and Amrita Rao. It is set to be released on January 30. The film is co-produced by Walk Water Media (a production house promoted by Manmohan Shetty).

Manmohan Shetty said in a release that this is the first such film finance deal in India where a third party is spending for print and advertising expenses related to the movie. Such expenses typically

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accounts for 15-25% of the cost of a film.

Vistaar Religare Film Fund has nine movie projects in various stages of production. The investment management committee of the fund has names like adman R Balakrishnan, film maker Bhavna Talwar, actor Pankaj Kapoor, movie commentator Subhash Jha, ad film-maker Johnny

Pintoo, VC firm Helion co-founder Kanwaljit Singh, Religare COO Shachindra Nath besides Sheetal Vinod Talwar, a former banker and co-founder of Vistaar Entertainment Ventures, a film production venture that focuses on films targeting the international market.

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There are quite a few film funds have in the market now. Cinema Capital Venture Fund, (CCVF) was launched this year with a corpus of Rs 500 crore. Then there is also Indian Film Company, which raised $110 million from the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of London Stock Exchange. Theatre chain company Pyramid Saimira Theatre Limited (PSTL) is also planning to launch a Rs 250 crore private equity fund to invest in films.

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