Luc Jacquet's film has been dubbed in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu and will be released in four languages (including English) for the Indian market. Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan provides the voiceover for the Hindi and English versions to a script by Black Friday director Anurag Kashyap.
Sunil Doshi, CEO and Director of Alliance Media and Entertainment, who has the Indian rights to the film, said that this would be the first French docu-drama to be released in India. 'We are releasing 27 prints in four languages across India via Adlabs. When we acquired the film, it had not reached Oscars. Then it went on to win. We are now looking forward to 800,000 to 1m admissions for the film.'
The strategy on release and dubbing in multiple languages was a result of Doshi and his team viewing the film several times and finding that 'though penguins are not identifiable in our environment, the film touched a chord because it was akin to the Indian ethos of the struggle and hardships faced by parents raising their children. We want to connect to the masses.'
While Hollywood and international films used to contribute only 5% of Indian box office returns, thanks to dubbing into various regional Indian languages that figure has increased to 9%. 'We wanted to take advantage of that model,' said Doshi.
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