HILL HIGH: Kay Kay Menon and Sonali Kulkarni shoot for Via Darjeeling on the Mall. Picture by Aranya Sen

Trring! Trring!

Voice: Hello… I’m calling from Dream Works Studios, USA. We noticed your stall at Cannes. It talked about the Sunderbans. I believe you can spot Royal Bengal tigers, Salvador lizards and estuarine crocodiles there? We’d like to know more about that for a shoot.

Bengal Tourism Department: That’s very nice indeed but there’s nobody in office to talk to you now. Bosses out of town. Don’t know when they’d be available.

Voice: Oh, ok. Can I have your email address so we could mail you our queries?

BTD: Er…sorry… we don’t have one…

That’s where — in an imagined conversation — it all comes to a halt just after the pleasant surprise of Bengal being the only Indian state to promote its “high Himalayas” and “bewitching beaches” as a film destination at Cannes this year.

The wonders of the Internet remain alien in this corner of the world.

The display at Cannes consisted of a four-page account of Bengal as “The preferred location to work your magic” and a 10-minute docufilm on its “gentle coastlines, rocky hills, city roads and paddy farms”.

The last page of the brochure, bearing details of “further information and liaison”, gives the tourism department’s postal address. But a director or producer wishing to make an enquiry is not supposed to knock on that door, rather one of a tourism centre located elsewhere, according to Pritha Sarkar, joint director of the tourism department.

No one is designated to attend to enquiries at the landline numbers of the department mentioned in the brochure. Log onto the website and the contact page doesn’t open.

“We don’t have an email address but the website is about to be upgraded. Should be ready in the next four months,” says Sarkar.

It was Sarkar who had taken the initiative to respond to the National Film Development Corporation’s query to all states if they wanted to be showcased at Cannes.

“A film shot here can have a cascading effect in generating interest as a tourist and shooting destination. The image of the state improves and tourism enhances employment,” explains Sarkar.

“Things may not happen immediately. We’ll plan our next move after we get a proposal,” she adds.

An effort that began with participation in Cinemascapes 2007 (where the tourism trade met the entertainment industry) in Mumbai to acquaint Indian and international film producers with shooting spots and took a step forward with the Cannes presence appears to have reached a blind alley.