Mumbai, Oct 7 – Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced a bold four‑year plan to turn Mumbai’s Film City in Goregaon into a world‑class film ecosystem. The announcement came at the 25th FICCI Frames event, where Fadnavis met Bollywood star Akshay Kumar.
Fadnavis said the Film City project stalled during his previous term (2014‑2019), but he is now ready to move forward. “We will start inside a year,” he told Kumar, who urged the chief minister to make the transformation a priority.
The revamped Film City will feature state‑of‑the‑art studios that support emerging tech like virtual production, artificial intelligence and advanced visual effects. The site already houses the Indian Institute of Creative Technology, an industry‑led college owned 52 % by FICCI and partly by the Maharashtra and central governments.
Fadnavis also pledged a new strategy to bring younger audiences, especially Gen Z, closer to Marathi cinema. “Marathi films have huge creative potential. I’ll build a plan to connect them to Gen Z,” he said.
India’s creative economy is booming. The media and entertainment sector has grown from ₹25,000 crore in 2000 to about ₹2.5 lakh crore today, according to Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Secretary Sanjay Jaju. Maharashtra’s culture ministry says the state’s media and entertainment sector contributes over ₹2 lakh crore to the regional GDP.
The government is rolling out a new film policy and developing new film cities across Maharashtra to meet rising demand. At FICCI Frames, Ayushmann Khurrana, the event’s ambassador, praised the platform’s 25‑year history of uniting creative professionals and shaping Indian entertainment. “Indian stories and talents are gaining global recognition, and FICCI has been a catalyst for that change,” he said.
Jaju highlighted that digital media is growing twice as fast as India’s GDP, while animation, visual effects, gaming and extended reality markets expand at 30 % annually. Indian content now streams to more than 200 countries on platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime and JioStar.
He warned of challenges such as piracy, misinformation and uneven revenue sharing. “Growth must come with responsibility,” Jaju urged, stressing the government’s role in ensuring fair standards.
Anant Goenka, FICCI senior vice‑president, noted that the Indian Institute of Creative Technology is a milestone. The institution, founded by industry leaders, focuses on workforce training, research, innovation and policy support for animation, VFX, gaming and XR.
The move signals Maharashtra’s ambition to cement India’s status as a global content‑production hub while boosting local talent and technology.
Source: ianslive
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