by Subhash K Jha

Foreign- film buffs need no longer wait for satellite television to screen that favourite Oscar winning French film or Japanese film.

Sunil Doshi, who runs a major celebrity -endorsement company in Mumbai that looks after the advertisement assignments of Amitabh & Abhishek Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra, Rani Mukherjee (among others), has formed two companies Handmade Films and Forum Films which will be releasing award –winning international films in foreign languages.

This is an unusual phenomenon in India where foreign-language films, not even the Oscar-winning ones, are obtainable to cine buffs on the large screen.

"We plan to change that. We want to bring new foreign films into India for large-screen viewing," says Doshi who last week married his French girlfriend Anna.

"We're starting with the French documentary March Of The Penguins directed by Luc Jacquet which has just won an Oscar. It's a prized acquisition. And Mr Bachchan has agreed to do the Hindi voice-over in place of the original commentary by Morgan Freeman. I don't think this kind of an experiment has been attempted before."

Besides the much-lauded March Of The Penguins, Doshi's two companies are also releasing the Belgian/French co-production L'Enfant directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne which has already won the Palm d'Or at the Cannes film festival 2005, and Dominik Moll's Lemming which was the opening film at Cannes in 2005.

"We're right now in negotiation about several of the Oscar- nominated foreign films this year," says Doshi whose company Handmade Film has produced three Hindi films --Santosh Sivan's Terrorist & Navarasa and Rajat Kapoor's Mixed Doubles.

Says Doshi, "We're very happy with the way Mixed Doubles has performed at the boxoffice. It was never designed as a blockbuster. It was a small naughty comedy and it has more than earned back our investments. We've now completed a second film with the same team called Bheja Fry. It's even zanier and more saucy than Mixed Doubles. ...It has Konkona and Ranvir Shorey in the lead, and Rajat Kapoor as director. He also plays a role."

Says Doshi, "We at Handmade Films and Forum Films aren't looking at short-term gains. I won't look at the accounts sheet after every foreign release or after every film I produce. The idea is to look at long-term creative benefits. And if some financial profits are shown at the end of the year or two years we're happy. Otherwise Handmade Films and Forum Films will still continue to release and distribute the films it believes in."