India's cultural crosswalk (Variety)

With some fake snow and ice, a little corner of the Antarctic will be recreated at the French Embassy later this month for the Indian premiere of "March of the Penguins."

Going one better than Morgan Freeman, who narrated Warner Independent's U.S. version, Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan will do the voiceover in English and Hindi.

Why all this effort? Although the documentary was a smash in other countries, success for any foreign film in India isn't guaranteed: The market share for local films is an estimated 95%.

However, foreign distribs and production companies are slowly trying to infiltrate the subcontinent's robust moviegoing market, which sees an estimated 3 billion annual admissions. To look at it another way: 10 million moviegoers a day bring in some $1.2 billion annually in box office admissions.

Although audiences here prefer local fare, there are encouraging signs for foreign films. A multiplex building boom has helped drive demand, and opened screen space to a wider array of movies. "Casino Royale," released on a hefty 500 prints, recently notched $4 million in its first two weeks -- a record for a non-Bollywood film even in 007-adoring India.

Playing on 50 prints since last fall, the Gallic laffer "Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra" has tallied 1 million admissions, the best performance to date for a French film in India.

In fact, "Asterix" is one of 15 Gallic films that have sold to Indian distribs in the past 18 months, well ahead of the norm of two or three per year.

"India is one of the emerging markets we are most interested in," says Marc Piton, director of French film promotional org Unifrance. "There are new distributors interested in foreign films, purchasing power is going up, and it is a film-loving country."

Among other things, foreign distribs are learning to cater to the diversity of the Indian marketplace.

Like "Casino Royale," "Penguins" also will be released in Telugu and Tamil to reach the millions of Indians who watch films only in those languages. Sunil Doshi's Handmade Films is the Indian distributor.

"We are never going to have a big market share in India, but there is an opportunity here to create a niche for French films," says Mohamed Bendjebbour, attache of the French embassy's media office.

The office relocated from Delhi to Mumbai last year to be closer to Bollywood's movers and shakers. It's trying to pair French exporters with local distribs -- in some cases, covering up to 40% of the cost of vernacular dubbing as a further incentive for distribution deals.

Although German pics haven't made much of a splash in the subcontinent, Beta Cinema is determined to get a proper release for "The Lives of Others," the European Film Academy award winner and Germany's Oscar entry.

"We've sold it to practically every country in the world and now we are trying to find the right Indian distributor," says Beta Cinema's Andreas Rothbauer, head of international sales.

"India is a terra incognita for most of is, but it is going to grow in importance. Now is the time to figure it out," he adds.

The main stumbling block to dealmaking is the difficulty calculating the value of the Indian distribution market.

Business "tends to be fee-only," observes Rothbauer. "The trouble is, because you've no idea what's doable in India, it's very hard working out what that fee should be."

Another route into the Indian market is via local films.

Like the Hollywood majors who dabble in local production, Europeans are exploring co-prod opportunities and seeking to establish links with indie players in the Indian film industry.

A flurry of activity resulted in a handful of films made around 2001, among them Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding" and Pan Nalin's "Samsara." India has largely dropped out of focus since then, but both the U.K. and France are in the throes of updating co-production agreements that should make it easier to finance future projects.

In November, the Paris-based European Producers' Club and India's National Film Development Corp. jointly hosted a co-production forum in Mumbai, bringing together a dozen European filmmakers and their Indian counterparts.

Almost all of the 20-odd participants had at least one project to tout. Chances appeared fair to good that at least some attendees would try to do business together, despite vast differences in the way they work.

"There's a nice energy here," opined Dutch producer Hans de Weers, "but it's like an uncontrollable rocket. They are getting things done, but infrastructure for Indian filmmakers is very poor."

Some Indian attendees said they'd mortgaged their homes to get their films made; others said it was usual in India to more or less skip the development stage.

"You give us the money, we can develop a project in five minutes," says thesp-producer Gulshan Grover, only half-jokingly.

However, culture is an even bigger hurdle to successful co-prods. It's difficult to make a film that will find an audience in the co-producers' respective territories.

Admissions in India for "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Bride and Prejudice," which had presumed crossover appeal, came nowhere near those for a Bollywood hit.

Praveen Nischol, CEO of film production for Adlabs, one of the Indian film industry's biggest players, reckons crossover films will always be doomed to fail.

"There are too many cultural differences. In Indian films, to show emotion, there are a lot of close-ups of a character's face. In Western films, it is vulgar; the more you hide emotion, the better. The only films that cross over are above or below culture, like 'Spider-Man.' "

For similar reasons, Indian films have not moved into the European mainstream despite a rash of Bollywood film festivals and stage shows.

However, there has been a noteworthy hike in U.K. admissions -- one that's attributed to expatriate Indians going to movie theaters to see films they used to watch on video.