A vast opportunity is now being opened for India and Sri Lanka in the digital entertainment field, hitherto untapped by both countries. This new potential has been exposed after a Chennai-based company undertook to dub and distribute all over India, ‘The Road From Elephant Pass’, Sri Lanka’s official entry for the Oscars next year.

This was revealed by veteran Indian IT expert Anand Parthasarathy when he made a presentation on “Animation and Digital Cinema”at a media work shop organised by Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (KINFRA) held at KINFRA FV Park in Trivandrum recently with the participation of Indian and Sri Lankan Journalists. Mr Parthasarathy is a graduate in Instrumentation and Control from Poona University (India) and did his Masters degree in Systems Engineering at Birmingham University (UK) specializing in Military Systems. He is also serving as a Director KINFRA.

Mr Parthasarathy noted that the Southern Digital Screenz (SDS) run by Usman Faiz would dub the Sri Lankan movie into Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannda and Hindi, and release it in 1000 digital cinemas in India. This is possibly the first major release of a Sri Lankan film product in India – and is a pointer to the larger opportunity for cooperation between Sri Lankan and Indian players in the emerging area of digital cinema and entertainment.

Mr Parthasarathy said that the state-supported KINFRA Film and Video Park has created an export oriented tech park where digital production, pre production, dubbing, animation and other activitities are being carried out. Its proximity to Sri Lanka makes it an ideal launch pad for mutually beneficial collaboration in such areas which will also help the Sri Lankan film industry reach a global market through digital distribution of their products.