Taking a look at the world
of telenovelas



India insists on the distribution
     of their dramas and telenovelas

uman Film is an Indian distribution company founded 15 years ago. They distribute series, telenovelas, dramas, films and several Indian programs that are successfully sold in the Middle East, Malaysia and Japan.
“We have made sales in Canada and some parts of America. We have not been able to sell many of our products in Spain or Mexico yet, but we’ll soon do it as we have series of 400 hours,” says Vimal Gupta, representative of the company, who assures that the soap-operas they make are very similar to telenovelas. “They have many episodes with similar problems and with the same structure which gains a big TV audience,” he explains, “the structure, cost of production and stories are more or less the same. So one day we will have the possibility of making telenovelas for Latin American countries or together with them.”
India produces telenovelas, some with more than 300 episodes, among them, a very successful one is Orat, which means Women, and it is the story of a woman and her everyday problems with very similar characteristics to those of a Latin telenovela. Another success is Betty la Fea, an original Colombian play, adapted by SONY Television for the Indian audience. “The results have been great and rating very high,” says Gupta and he adds that this tendency to adapt programs will become more common in his country.

	Vimal Gupta

The most successful series of her catalogue is Maha, with 94 episodes. It is a fantastic drama and the most popular series we have ever produced. The BBC of London is interested in it and they have already broadcasted it twice, the same as India, “and in many other parts in the world as well, with satisfactory repetitions,” Gupta assures.
When referring to the characteristics of the Indian audience, Gutham says that they like series, films about the future, heroes, singers, dancers and programs with happy endings. “The Indian audience prefers films above all. People are very poor and not everybody can go to the theatres. They only want to see their favourite movie and forget about their problems. Hence, our job is to take them to a magic world. That is the aim of TV in India.”