The founders of the Australia India Film Fund have raised millions of dollars to produce films and television series that they say will work as soft diplomacy, while also making money.
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Anupam Sharma, the founder of Films & Casting TEMPLE, which is already consulting on a number of Indian films shot in Australia, oversees the fund's investment as its head of films.
"I would love to see - as a film maker, as an Australian of Indian origin - I would love to see contemporary, modern Australian stories coming out," Mr Sharma told SBS.
The scripts in development tackle serious issues including domestic violence and lighter themes such as love.
Mr Sharma told SBS he hoped to replicate the success of India-centric stories such as Britain's Bend it Like Beckham.
Mr Sharma, who is based at Sydney's Fox Studios, said "it is the right time to invest in the Australian industry's niche projects and redefine the form and content of an Australian story".
Sydney-based IT entrepreneur Davendra Gupta heads the Fund and said he aimed to finance one Australian feature film and one TV series or documentary each year. The idea is to foster better cross-cultural ties.
"Over the time we saw the Indian diaspora growing here and a need for cultural integration of the Indian population with the Australian population and we saw a lot of things happening that we talked about - the student issue - here and a lot of misinformation in India," he told SBS.
"The student issue" refers to several violent attacks on students five years ago. Mr Gupta said the Indian media sensationally overstated the incidents and it became clear Australia has to work on its cultural relationship with India.
"Indians here are not able to correlate as much as we think they would be in the mainstream so we think there is a lot of potential here for Australian stories," he said.
It's all possible thanks to a 40 per cent tax-break producer offset initiative.
To qualify for the 40 per cent producer offset for feature films - 20 per cent for television - the projects will need to be developed in Australia, or have a significant proportion of Australian participation.
Co-founder Yateender Gupta said there was a growing numbers of professional Australian investors of Indian origin.
"The investor-friendly Australian film space and the success of India-centric western films should ensure a long- term presence supporting Australian stories," he said.
"Our mission is very clear, we want to have a non loss-making project, this is number one. Second, we want to get Indian-centric film that is Australian."
So while it is not all about money, there is a huge potential audience. People of Indian origin are the fastest growing sector of the Australian population.
"We forget that Australia's growing so fast in its multicultural face that the definition of an Australian story is changing," Mr Gupta said.
And with 25 million Indians living abroad, there's potential for export too.
"We hope that through this fund we can carry those Australian stories about Indians to the screen not only I Australia but to India and south east Asia and around the world - to a huge audience."
Initial projects have been identified although applications may be invited for ongoing funding rounds. The first shows are expected within 18 months.
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