By Emmanuel T. Erediano
Variety News Staff

THREE executives of a Mumbai-based film outfit are on Saipan scouting for locations for the four movies they are completing this year.
Rendevouz International Entertainment, which is among Bollywood’s many producers, will spend an average of $5 million to $6 million for each of the four movies, according to Mohit Jain, the film outfit’s business development director.
Bollywood accounts for 40 percent of the total revenues of India’s film industry.
Jain arrived here on Thursday with technical director Madhu Sharma and creative director, Mohamed Zariwala.
They will stay on the island for the rest of the week and look for “exotic” places appropriate for the movies currently under production.
Mustafah Shakir, a CNMI businessman, invited them to see the island.
Shakir, who has been on Saipan for 16 years now, said the film executives are scheduled to meet with Speaker Oscar M. Babauta, Covenant-Saipan, and Marianas Visitors Authority’s Wayne Pangelinan.
India’s booming movie industry produces 1,500 films a year, according to Jain.
Filming on Saipan, he said, will promote the island as a tourist destination in India which now has 1 billion people.
Jain said after they filmed in Singapore “an amazing number of people from India visited the city-state and had fun seeing the places where the movie was shot.”
The government of Singapore helped produce the movie.
On Saipan, Jain said they want to shoot scenes for “Raakh,” or “Ashes,” an action-drama film.
The movie is already finished, Jain said, and all they have to do on Saipan is to shoot at locations for songs used in the movie.
The two other movies they plan to shoot on island are “Rokda,” or “Cash,” an action/thriller; “Joker (This World Is a Circus),” a comedy; and “Love in Saipan,” a love story.
Shakir said he told the film executives that Saipan could be a better film location than Malaysia or Singapore.
“When we came here we saw all the beautiful locations — we got everything that we require, and the equipment that we saw here is also of good quality,” Jain said.
He added that they always look for beautiful locations for the songs in their movies.
“We want to show beautiful locations that people back in India might want to visit,” he said, adding that they usually make a movie with six to seven song and dance sequences.
Jain said they will also be looking for local talents to include in the cast.