Indian films, which claim an annual turnover of Rs.9 billion ($200 million), are venturing into new markets like China and Europe to capitalise on their growing global popularity.

"With the size of the population it has, sky is the limit in China. We are trying hard to enter China though we have to overcome language problems there," tells Nandkumar Bele, the secretary of Indian Film Exporters Association.

Taking part in a Film Bazaar on the sidelines of the 35th International Film Festival of India, Bele said export of prints earned about one-third of the film industry's revenue, roughly Rs.3.5 billion ($79.5 million).

To this can be added the growing earnings reported from animation, telecasting rights for films, repeat telecasts and short films.

"Our markets have so far largely been made up of non-resident Indian audiences. But now audiences in some countries have begun to show interest. Countries like France, Spain and Brazil have for long had an interest in things Indian," he said.

Russia too has long been a market for Indian films, but the problem of piracy is acting as a strong deterrent, Bele added.

"Ninety-five percent of our exports are of Hindi films. We rarely export Gujarati, Marathi or Bengali films," he said. "Films for the Tamil diaspora in countries like Malaysia or Switzerland go out of Chennai."

So far, the bulk of Hindi film exports have been to countries such as the US, Canada, Britain, Mauritius, Fiji, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia.

The Mumbai-based Indian Film Exporters Association deals mainly in Hindi films.

Its aim is to promote export of Indian films and explore new ways of doing so. For this it networks exporters of Indian films and TV programmes.

It also acts as a platform to tackle problems of law, decrees, administrative regulations beneficial to the motion picture industry in general, and export trade.

Bele pointed to the complexities of exporting Indian movies to non-Hindi audiences, saying dubbing was near impossible given the role songs played in the films.

Subtitling is a possibility, but this is acceptable only in the smaller centres, where language-groups are accustomed to foreign language films being subtitled.

For instance, smaller markets like Finland and Sweden accept a lot of sub-titled films from across the globe. But the French, being a far larger market, expect films to be dubbed into their language.

"We currently export only mainstream cinema. We've not yet looked at documentary or non-feature films, though there is a market for these too in some European countries," Bele said.