MUMBAI: National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) has been allocated a sum of Rs 300 million for five years by the Information & Broadcasting ministry for film production and promotion of new talent.

NFDC is also ready to release four films this fiscal. While three out of these four films, namely The White Elephant, Lucky Red Seeds and Via Darjeeling, are co-productions with NDTV Imagine, Mirchi Movies, and Moxie Entertainment respectively, Bioscope is a solo production film from the NFDC stable.

Via Darjeeling, a film by Arindam Nandy, is ready to release this July. The film stars Kay Kay Menon, Parvin Dabas, Sonali Kulkarni, Vinay Pathak, Rajat Kapoor, Sandhya Mridul and Simone Singh.

"Via Darjeeling is ready for a July release. The film will be distributed by PVR across the country," stated NFDC MD Nina Lath Gupta.

Lucky Red Seeds, directed by Anjali Menon, is slated to release this November.

"Lucky Red Seeds represent the memories seen through the young eyes of Vicky - one of the millions of Indian children raised outside their country. The film, in Malayalam, will be released in November with English subtitles," said NFDC production manager D. Ramakrishnan.

Bioscope, NFDC's solo production, has been written, scripted and directed by KM Madhusudhanan. The film depicts the inner meaning of moving images.

It is a story about Diwakaran, and what became of his very close friend, the "bioscope". Traveling through villages, he erected tents and screened early film strips using a projector, known at that time as "bioscope".

Both Bioscope and The White Elephant are currently under the production stage and will see a release in the latter part of the fiscal.

Additionally, NFDC will participate in the film market at the 61st Cannes festival next month to promote its new productions.

"We have entered Bioscope and Lucky Red Seeds for the festival screenings and are hoping that these two movies will be selected. The names of the shortlisted films are awaited," said Gupta.

Also, NFDC has appointed film actor Om Puri as their new chairman. The actor assumed his new role from 4 April '08 onwards for a period of 3 years.

The appointment has been made after a gap of almost one year when film distributor and financier Manmohan Shetty resigned from the post.

Talking about his plans Om Puri stated that he will encourage and promote young film makers who have the potential of making a good film which is rich in content. NFDC will recognize young talent with interesting projects and help them produce films.

He also wants to promote various workshops like in the area of script writing and screen play as deserving talent can be tapped.

Furthermore, Om Puri also plans to introduce an effective concept called "cooperatives". In this model if the script or the film demands established and famous actors, a unanimous arrangement will be reached between NFDC as a production house and the cast and crew of a particular film. After deciding on the script, NFDC will approach them with an offer to work in the film on a subsidised fee.

If the film becomes a success in the box office, the profit garnered will be shared with all those who are involved in the project. The idea behind this concept is to give boost to film makers with experiential and viable scripts but limited budgets. This proposal will help procure prominent talents for small budget films.

Earlier, Dadasaheb Phalke awardee and film director Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Bollywood actor Hema Malini had served as chairman of NFDC.