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Common man in times of terror

Asian — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:40:32 GMT

By Latika Padgaonkar

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." Path-breaking American journalist Dorothy Thompson’s words glow on the closing image of the film Madholal, Keep Walking shown at the Osian’s-Cinefan film festival recently. A candid message: don’t buckle, keep the chin up. Stop freezing, start walking. Sure. But how easy is it?

Jai Tank’s first feature (he is a director of documentaries and public service films) takes us through the daily life of a Mumbaikar. A common man’s story, is how he wants his audience to view it. Madholal, the lower-middle-class guy next door, takes the local to work, as do his buddies — the peon, the small-time broker, the small-time executive, the lawyer, the retiree. His little hopes and concerns — a daughter to marry, another to educate, what’s in the tiffin today, the line at the chawl’s sole crappy toilet, a birthday cake to be bought, friends for dinner… and a near empty pocket keep him sort of content in his circumscribed world.

The diurnal up and down in the packed train, that irrepressible lifeline of Mumbai and the stuff of the film’s first part, is shot with unparalleled authenticity. The station, the vendors and the shuffling crowds, the grit, the grime and the sweat. Nothing particularly heroic here, not in body nor in spirit. Just the face of everyman. It’s the Mumbai we know, zestful and chaotic, peppered with small frauds and deceptions, crass and garish and in a tearing hurry. But for the friends on the train, the journey is a moment of raucous laughter. Their repartees are witty, bawdy, teasing, vulgar; it’s their daily dose of fun. Musicians and singers entertain the passengers. Aptly, their songs remind us that we are all travellers and no one lives more than his allotted time. It’s a warning we don’t heed.

Meanwhile, Madholal invites his good neighbour Anwar, the owner of a small garage, and his relatives for dinner. A friendly occasion, with cheer and harmony on both sides. Anwar is helpful and straightforward, and Madholal’s daughter takes more than a neighbourly interest in him.

You wonder where all this is leading. There are references to and sequences on communal amity, but by now the film is over 40 minutes old. When will this back-and-forth end?

And then the second part, the big bang, one moment of conflagration, near cosmic in its impact. Like the end of life itself… But we see no TV footage of the train’s debris, no blood, limbs or ambulance. Madholal is wounded, he loses an arm. Nothing further on his friends, we presume they are dead. And so begins a common man’s descent into a personal hell. Madholal cannot summon the words to articulate his anguish. His eyes blank, his face haunted, his faith in God gone, his silence total. Seized by nightmares, he withdraws into himself, and no goading can bring him back to the real world. A world that has no psychiatrists or therapists. In any case, people of limited means probably couldn’t have afforded them. Madholal must grapple with his problems alone even as a "resilient" Mumbai gets back on its feet and commuters get back to their ways.

The police arrests Anwar in connection with the blast. No chargesheet yet, but investigations are on. The arrest is simple and non-violent. But it serves to deepen Madholal’s confusion and anguish. Father and daughter visit him in prison, bring him home-made food, but there is little they can do.

When he musters enough courage one day to return to the station, the shoe-shine boy whom he formerly knew as an incense-stick seller, peddles humdrum advice: "Tension nahin leneka." The words, though, are not quite as hollow as they sound. A brief shot of the shawl on his legs blowing away with the gust of wind from a rushing local gives you a glimpse of an amputated leg. Was he too a blast victim? "I’m happy," says this less educated lad, somehow with a catch in his throat. "I earn more than before. And no jhanjhat of crawling through crowds." A poignant and lingering shot of an infinitely sad look in his eyes.

And so? What is Madholal’s future? We’ve heard of this "resilience" of Mumbai to calamities both natural and man-made. Is this true? Or a mere media invention? Does the city really "bounce back"? Or is "resilience" just a catchy word for saying that people have no option but to get on with their lives? But changes there are. Some small acts of kindness towards an amputee. The vanishing of carefree laughter. The new mood of suspicion — especially of owner-less bags.

Does Madholal recover? We are led to believe so. By the end of the film he seems to begin his journey towards a positive zone. There’s a glimmer of hope. A hope rekindled not so much through his helpful wife nor through the beseeching of his sharp-witted daughter, but, surprisingly, through routine phrases pouted by commuters unaffected by the blast. "What has happened has happened… at least you were spared, others died… that’s life, you can’t run away from it… terrorists are cowards, eunuchs… how many will they kill? 100, 1000, 10,000? This is India, not London or America where people scamper after one blast… if we show guts we will prevail…" Common words that gather an uncommon force in Madholal’s turbulent mind. And so begins a journey into an understanding of the self and the first step towards banishing fear. Yes, there’s a life to live and things to do. This is the story of the common man in a time of terror and of a deeply Indian way of viewing and accepting. There is resilience after all, even if it takes time setting in.

The spate of songs in the film are perhaps one too many. But Subrat Dutta as Madholal puts in an exceptional performance. At the festival, the film held the audience spellbound. Madholal... has had a screening in Indore at the Global Cinema Festival and another at a festival in Atlanta. It is competing at the ongoing festival in Sao Paolo and will compete again in Cairo later in the year, apart from its selection at Iffi, Kolkata, Third Eye (Mumbai) and Hidden Gems Film Festival in Calgary, Canada. Its release in India is planned for March. Readers, keep waiting.

Brother vs Brother

Asian — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:44:07 GMT

Latika Padgaonkar

More than 60 years after the founding of Israel, the enormously complex issue of the separation of state and religion continues to divide the country’s citizenry. Israel’s situation is unique — it is a Jewish state and a democracy. Its Declaration of Independence guarantees freedom of religion, a freedom not always implemented to the satisfaction of secular and non-Orthodox Jews. So serious is the matter that Swiss-based Israeli filmmaker Igaal Nidaam (whose award-winning film Brothers, which showed at the Osian’s-Cinefan Film Festival recently) takes the issue head-on and expresses fears the country will move irretrievably toward civil war if left unresolved. Can a modern state be created with religious laws, his film asks? What comes first — the State or the Torah?

Brothers doesn’t beat about the bush. Indeed, there is an urgent and missionary feel to Nidaam’s film as he marshals and presents the many-sided legal, social, political and theological ramifications surrounding this divisive issue. Two brothers, Dan and Ahron, originally from Argentina, have been separated for over twenty years. Dan has come to Israel, Ahron to the US. Dan’s letters to his younger brother have gone unanswered. And then one day, Ahron foxes Dan by announcing his arrival in Jerusalem. The visit is far from benign. He has come to defend the case of a yeshiva (religious school) in the Supreme Court. The yeshiva seeks to get its students exempted from compulsory military service. As bearers of Judaism and Jewish values, it believes, its students are soldiers of God alone.

The personalities of Dan and Ahron are as different as chalk and cheese and emblematic of the two faces of Israel. Interestingly, both the brothers are engaged in Biblical occupations: Dan the shepherd (or rather a sheep manager), Ahron the rabbi. Dan, a father of two, a once-upon-a-time Communist, now a kibbutznik (even if the kibbutz wears a bourgeois look), a child of the ideological ’60s and ’70s, his family cultured and content, his son in the army, doing his military service; Ahron the orthodox rabbi and brilliant lawyer from New York, a believer in the Torah’s teachings, suave, unmarried and given to frequent prayers. He will not shake hands with women, nor eat fruit before knowing how it was planted. Discomfiture sets in quickly after he arrives. "The abyss between us is deeper than darkness…There is not an ounce of Judaism left in Dan." (Ahron); "Religious guys live off charity. He must have come to collect money for his yeshiva. We are not kosher enough for him." (Dan)

The heart of Jerusalem’s orthodox quarter greets Ahron as a messiah. With him fighting their case, it seems as good as won. But wait. The mighty lawyer has to contend with Shelly Meron, a smart, intelligent, attractive District Attorney made of stern mettle. She will move mountains to rid the country of this discrimination, this blatant evasion of civic duty. Only the secular pay with their blood, she claims, while the orthodox run off and burn the army’s marching orders as an act of faith. They not only dodge the draft, explains Nidaam, they are "parasites" in every way, and an economic burden on the state. They vote, yes, but neither pay taxes nor work, and believe the government and society owe them a living. All in the name of God. The yeshiva (and by extension the students and the rabbi) get subsidies from the government and political parties and their numbers are on the rise. Over 65,000 18-year-olds enter religious schools every year. In the film, the yeshiva rabbi actively prevents his students from enlisting because the draft, he thunders, contradicts Jewish laws and justice. My film, Nidaam explains, only reflects the prevailing situation.

The case proceeds in court, with Ahron freely quoting the scriptures and working slyly around arguments. When you argue in the name of God there nothing left to argue.

But the situation in Israel, which Ahron hasn’t visited for decades, bears little resemblance to the B/W picture he has painted for himself. Its complexity breaks him bit by bit. When the DA thrusts before him a list of fictive names of yeshiva students given to the government by the rabbi’s son, he learns to his horror that it’s a case of open corruption. Ahron may be orthodox but he is at least honest with himself, he knows he stands no chance. His world crumbles, he begins doubting his divine mission, his acceptance of the case. People, he realises, are moderately secular here, not the atheists/extremists he has presumed. So? Should he follow his client or his heart? He resigns.

As Ahron opens up to Israel’s reality, he also softens up to the DA, visiting her at home (unthinkable in an earlier day since orthodox Jews forbid any proximity between unmarried couples) after yeshiva students (now described as hooligans by Ahron) attack and revile her as a witch.

For the rabbi’s son Shmuel, Ahron’s resignation is the last straw — it is pure poison. The story then can have one and only one end. Ahron is stabbed to death by Shmuel and a comrade posing as Arabs in the alleys near the Wailing Wall. He had to, cries Shmuel to his father, he was left with no choice. The yeshiva must live. "A symbolic killing," says Nidaam. "All those who work for peace are martyred: Rabin, Sadat, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi…."

Brothers is an intelligent, sensitive and tightly-knit film built brick by careful brick, never losing sight of its objective. Its fine, convincing performances, crisp editing and restrained emotions tug at the heart. Every scene advances its argument, every shot reinforces its focus. But the story of the two brothers and more widely of the yeshiva contains the seeds of a grand battle. "When people speak of Israel, it is normally in the context of Israel-Palestine relations," says Nidaam. But this other problem is equally grave, if not graver. It is like a bomb ticking away. Nidaam is firmly for the separation of religion and state. "A large section of people, over 30 per cent, are either orthodox/conservative or sympathisers who oppose all moves towards peace with our neighbours. They are against progressive legislation, against the creation of a separate Palestinian state, even against the use of parking lots and lifts on the Sabbath. I have made this film not just for Israel, but for other countries where similar sets of problems are posed." Wrapped in a seductive story, Brothers takes off from real events (the draft dodging case was in court for several years before being thrust at Parliament which, unable to resolve it, shoved it into cold storage) poses the larger issue of religion and governance that incessantly beleaguers many other societies as well.

‘It is the story of a generation in Iran’

Asian — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:43:19 GMT

Nawaid Anjum

When you speak to the Iranian filmmaker Behnam Behzad Boroujeni, whose first feature film Tanha Do Bar Zendegui Mikonim (Before the Burial) was screened at the on-going Osian’s-Cinefan Film Festival in New Delhi, you notice how wary he is of slipping into any "controversial" terrain. When you take notes, he looks over, pleading not to put anything that he is talking off the record. He has to go back to his country, he explains.

These "off the record" conversation is primarily about the censorship of cinema in Tehran and the kind of creative liberties an artiste enjoys in the Islamic Republic which has a rich cultural heritage. In modern Iran, cinema has seen unprecedented flowering in the last two decades. Its filmmakers, like Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Majid Majidi and Abbas Abbas Kiarostami, have burst onto the cinematic scene and earned global acclaim.

Interestingly, Osian’s-Cinefan Film Festival brings four films from the country, the other three being Abbas Kiarosatmi’s experimental drama Shirin (My Sweet Shirin), Manijeh Hekmat’s 3 Zan (Three Women) and Abdolreza Kahani’s Aan Ja (Over There).

Mr Behzadi’s wariness is a reflection on the state control the filmmakers are faced with.

Before The Burial is the story of a 40-year-old man, Siamak (played by Alireza Aghakhani), a medical student, who is expelled from university and sent behind bars for his political activities. When he is released from, he has fewer options and becomes a bus driver. Before he bids adieu to the world at the age of 40, he sets out to avenge his wrongs, meeting old flames, killing people who he thinks were responsible for making his life miserable.

It is a situation, says Mr Behzadi, which resonates in the lives of many a men in Tehran. "While it is not based on a real story, the film has situations which are common to the youth in Tehran. It is in a way the story of an entire generation" says Mr Behzadi.

The 38-year-old filmmaker, who was the co-scriptwriter in Bahman Ghobadi’s (an important figure of the new wave Iranian cinema) Half Moon, says: "While all of us have our disillusionments and despairs, we all try to have our own little habitats of hope."

It is the solitude of a man in a modern city that Mr Behzadi examines in his haunting frames. He says his story has its resonance everywhere and he has got the same response wherever the film has been screened — the United States, Spain and Australia. "It is about the universal human condition," says Mr Behzadi.

He says he thinks of himself as a painter, unleashing a riot of images on screen. Through this film, he wanted to find his own idiom. "I made this film for myself," he says.

Looking beyond the WWW

Asian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:41:51 GMT

Asha Sachdeva

Designyatra 2009 is around the corner. Into its 2009 edition, Kyoorius Designyatra purports to redefine visual communication in India. The cerebral conclave that draws top talent from various creative disciplines, has to date been attended by over 4350 people, demonstrating the emerging design consciousness amongst the design community.

Designyatra 2009, scheduled to be held from September 4 to 7 at the Renaissance Mariott in Mumbai, has as its theme, "The New Norm," or "Thinking bey-ond the conventional." Among the eminent speakers lined up for this year are Sir Martin Sorrell, Carlos Muñoz and Michael Wolff, to name a few. Also for the first time, The Netherlands, the design capital of the world has been designated official partner country to the Mumbai event.

Another interesting element is a matchmaking opportunity between Indian and Dutch designers, under which 14 design companies will fly into India to discuss strategy development, joint ventures, or attempt straight buyouts with their Indian counterparts.

While last year’s Designyatra, held in Panjim, Goa in September, had the theme of "Convergence" as its focal point, this year’s event will cover more than a discussion of the new media, insists Rajesh Kejriwal, founder of Kyoorius Exchange, the organisers of the show. Kejriwal told this paper, "If you noticed from the speaker’s lineup, many are working in fields beyond the conventional, yet in one way or the other, they are also part of the communication business. The idea, he insists, is to explore "how the specialists are working in other spaces to help businesses communicate."

This includes integrating retail experience branding with visual communications, moving images that promote brands, product design that provokes consumers’ desires, or crafting new experiences for mobile phone users, explains Kejriwal. "The world is changing and the communication business must change too," he adds.

Unfortunately most design houses and clients in India construe the World Wide Web as the new media. However, any activity that involves a digital component should count as new media, says Kejriwal, including, for instance, interactive store environments, mobile WAP applications, ATM applications, interactive event design and blue casting etc.

Think for instance of Mc Donald’s using blue casting to give away digital discount coupons as a Bluetooth download! For the uninitiated, the concept of Bluecasting is based on the creation, delivery and transfer of content to mobile phones via Bluetooth communications. Bluecasting is a proximity marketing solution, which allows brands to communicate to users via Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. Abroad banking, automobile and youth brands, such as Diesel, Nike, Burger King, Puma, and BMW are all pioneering the active use of such new media.

Kejriwal concedes that during recession-challenged times, it makes more economic sense to look at alternate media. "Alternate media, specifically digital media, has changed the way marketing and promotions are conducted across the world," he explains.

In his view, the disruptive model of advertising is changing. Today’s demand is for user-generated content and word-of-mouth buzz promos. "It’s no longer about "can you see my product," but "can you say a few good things about my product on your blog/facebook /twitter" etc?" he insists.

What Kejriwal is talking about here is essentially new media 2.0. "There are many avenues that we never paid attention to earlier, but were introduced as revolutionary concepts at Kyoorius Designyatra," he explains, citing for instance, branding exercises that craft totally new experiences, environmental spaces that bring brands alive, product designs that dramatically alter our perception of existing or new brands, communications designs that break through the normal paper and print clutter.

Kejriwal insists that what he is talking about here is digital space beyond the Internet that calls for a very visionary CEO, who has the courage and the foresight to adapt to any media, as long as it is conducive to pushing his company’s brand ahead of the competition.

"It’s a misconception that the Internet is just a database generation tool for further marketing efforts," he observes. "If the Internet is used correctly, it can be used to create thousands of brand ambassadors out there (for free) who can’t be bought with advertising / marketing money." The example that he cites is of a person who reposes great faith in a well-read blog but not so much in the full page paid ad of a product.

Driving home the importance of design, Kejriwal says, "Kyoorius has always been at the forefront of the design movement in India. At its roots, we believe, design is orchestrating how a brand is to be perceived by public eyes and also how it can unify a company or organisation internally."

This entails opening our minds to what design is. The playfield is actually much wider than graphics, advertising, or the Internet. "The best example of this," according to Kyoorius is to "imagine a hypothetical new product from Apple. Even without mentioning what it will be, the consumer can readily assume it will be well designed, from the packaging to the promotional campaign to the next iPhone application that will promote the product."

"If design is not the single most important component in Apple’s branding, I don’t know what else is," Kyoorius concludes.

Of passion and competition

Asian — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:18:03 GMT

Amrita Jayakumar and Ipsitaa Panigrahi

Have you ever thought of dance being treated as a sport? Have the awe-inspiring dance sequences felt like a far away dream? Dancers Dr Priti Gupta and Shannon Benjamin have realised their dream through the DanceSport India Company. In a country where Bollywood dance rules the roost, dance as a sport is virtually unheard of. So what made Priti and Shannon come up with this unique concept?

Shannon explains, "Dance is considered as a sport at international-level competitions, and even recognised as a medal sport at the Asian Games. We wanted to bring a feel of that to India." Their basic idea was to introduce people to the different Western dance forms and increase their awareness, Priti adds

Priti, being a physiotherapist, took to the art form six years ago when she started training in dance. "It all happened by chance actually. Various competitions and events gave me opportunities to go ahead," she explains. She had to choose between dance and physiotherapy, as justice couldn’t be done to both. Being a trained bharatnatyam dancer also helped her a lot. But Western dance forms came to her naturally and so she focused on it eventually. Shannon began his affair with dance during his college days, when he attended simple workshops conducted at festivals.

The duo’s association goes back to their years of training, where they met and learnt dancing at various schools and workshops. Their friendship gradually blossomed and in 2006, they decided to get together and begin participating in various competitions as a couple. "And we had the chemistry between us and knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses, which helped immensely. We actually felt that some of the 10 year olds participating in the competition were better than us. We felt a dire need for a place that could train you in all aspects of dance. That’s how DanceSport India came through," says Priti.

At DanceSport, it is salsa that is the most popular dance form. Being the easiest to learn, it had more takers initially and other dancing schools popularised it too. Ironically, the Latin dance form is not recognised as a dance sport at international competitions. Priti says, "There was certainly a lack of awareness about the other forms as they were more difficult and took time to learn. But over time, people are taking to the foxtrot, the cha cha, paso doble and many others."

Ask her about her favourite dance form and pat comes the reply: "The rumba — any day. It is the ultimate dance of love and one can experience a plethora of emotions while swaying to it. I enjoy the others depending on various moods but rumba is an all-time favourite." Shannon doesn’t have a favourite, since he agrees that the style of dance is influenced by one’s mood.

Having been in this field for quite some time, overconfidence has never occurred to them. "It is very important to be noticed and stand out during international competitions where 30 couples dance on one floor at the same time. You need to have a ‘look-at-me-I-am-the-best’ attitude," stresses Priti.

DanceSport India’s latest success was evident at the 1st Maharashtra Open DanceSport Championship held in Mumbai recently. Over 30 couples from all over the state competed in front of a full house at The Royal Bombay Yacht Club, showing off their skills in the samba, rumba, cha-cha and other dance styles. "It was a great success and has given us the confidence to hold more such competitions in the future. We eventually plan to take it to other states as well as the national level. In the future, we can have more couples from India competing at the international level too," he says.

One of Dance Sport’s student couples, Miten Thaker and Amishi Shah, who won in the novice category at the championship, also recently came 15th out of 30 couples at an international dance-sport event held in Singapore.

All things considered, dance sport is definitely making strides but has a long way to go in a country that is still "finding its feet" in this aspect of dance.

Shah Rukh can!

Asian — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:10:39 GMT

S Kumar

He is charismatic. He is adorable. He is intelligent. He is an actor, a producer, a team owner, a businessman and primarily an entertainer. Loved by millions of fans worldwide, he is the heartthrob of the nation. An absolute charmer, who has been wooing women with his chocolate-box looks and killer eyes for over two decades on screen, Shah Rukh Khan or SRK is undoubtedly the biggest brand in India.

From cars to soft drinks, from quiz shows to anchoring programmes and from biscuits to pens, computers and even a bank, the man endorses it all!

So what makes Shah Rukh so believable? Is it just his looks, his personality, his public image or the way he conducts himself on and off screen? Or maybe it’s a combination of factors that have helped SRK build an aura of invincibility around himself — a persona of inspiration — to become the penultimate icon of the nation.

For years now we have seen SRK on the big screen, fighting the most dreaded villains, being the ideal son, loving son-in-law, perfect big brother — not to mention a lover to die for! We hate it when he is down and out and we love it when he delivers those romantic lines. Such is the magic of Shah Rukh Khan — a man from a non-filmi background with no godfather to pull the strings and yet someone whose popularity and appeal goes way beyond region, nation, age and gender.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that SRK has been successful in marketing the thanda thanda cool cool Navratna tel!

In 2005, ITC Foods announced Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador for their flagship brand, Sunfeast. Who would have thought that in a market dominated by Parle and Britannia, a new brand like Sunfeast would be able to carve a niche for itself? But ITC played its cards right and according to A.C. Nielsen’s retail sales audit of March 2006, both Parle and Britannia started loosing significant volumes of their business and brand Sunfeast ruled the charts.

This is not just the make believe ‘good’ image of SRK that we see on screen which is compelling enough, it is also his magnetic off screen persona. His clean image, his honesty, his witty personality and most of all his intelligence that leaves little scope for consumers not to like him or believe in the brand he is selling. After all, if SRK is vouching for it, the brand must surely be special — believes the common man.

Yes, SRK has worked at being the perfect role model for the masses. From highlighting his typical common man traits like his secular credentials (marrying a Hindu girl), his family man image (no romantic link ups, he dotes on his kids), fearlessness (against underworld dons) and popular friendship tales (with Karan Johar, Farah Khan, Aditya Chopra), Khan has made sure that his unimaginable success has never affected his image negatively. He has mastered the art of communication and public relations. Otherwise, why would a Compaq sell more in India as compared to the bigger brands?

Yes, you’re right — when the Badshah is selling it, the others stand no chance. Despite all the big brands, endorsers and companies in the Indian Premier League, IPL worked best for SRK. Even though his team did not perform well in Season 2, Kolkata Knight Riders topped the charts with a Brand Value of $22 million as assessed by UK’s Intangible Business’ IPL Brand Value Scoreboard 2009.

There is no shortage of brands today and no shortage of celebrities. Yet, very few associations seem to work. Many times, the celebrity in question tends to overshadow the brand. But not where SRK is concerned. With around 40 brands in his kitty, not only is he the highest endorser but also the most believable. The man complements every brand he endorses and makes consumers believe — this is the product for you!

The author is an industry watcher

Manila by day and night

Asian — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:00:16 GMT

By Aruna Vasudev

If you want a new generation of filmmakers to emerge, start a film festival. That is the clear message transmitted by the Cinemalaya film festival in Manila. It has just held its fifth edition but the difference with other festivals is that this one is exclusively of Filipino films — around 170 of them this year. Features and short fiction, retrospectives (the unmatched Lino Brocka this time), documentaries, animation, women and, along with these sections, one on gay and lesbian films. Filipinos are known not to shy away from reality. And the Filipino reality is relaxed, accommodating, laidback.

Across the road from the Cultural Centre of the Philippines (CCP), the festival venue, is a restaurant complex where dozens of little restaurants and coffee shops serve everything from noodle soup to every kind of alcohol, and where the filmmakers, the theatre, dance and music people congregate after the last show at the CCP every night to engage in passionate discussion, while across the way the sea sparkles with the lights of Manila Bay. Little wonder then, the dozens of new Filipino filmmakers spring up everywhere. Little wonder also that this year in Cannes, Brillante Mendoza from the Philippines won the Best Director award and there were two other Filipino films in the Un Certain Regard section — Manila and Independencia. And no surprise that the Pusan Film Festival with its pulse on developments in Asian cinema will pay a homage to Filipino cinema at its coming edition this October.

Music and dance — and now even cinema — seem to be intrinsic to Philippine culture. They find highly creative expression in both formal stage presentations and in the way they live their lives. From all the around 7,000 islands that constitute the country, young people converge in Manila, which is the only real centre — of the country and of the film festival. The CCP was Imelda Marcos’ contribution to cultural life in the city and is now a vibrant centre for the arts, with three main theatres, art galleries and cafes. The Cinemalaya Foundation, the Cultural Centre and the Film Council Development of the Philippines come together to present this festival with a difference. The established filmmakers are also there, interacting with the young newcomers, and the still fairly restricted number of international delegates.

There is definitely a new wave in Filipino cinema. After the disappearance of Lino Brocka and Ishmael Bernal (who, incidentally, studied at the FTII in Pune many, many years ago), with Marilou Diaz-Abaya and Laurice Guillen engaged in other pursuits and only occasionally making a film themselves, with Mike de Leon having gone underground, there was lull that lasted two decades.

Chito Rono is one of the few of that generation still actively engaged in filmmaking and was a member of the jury this year. Now Marilou has a film school of her own and Laurice Guillen (whose Santa Santita was shown at Osian’s Cinefan in 2007, in her presence) is both vice-president of Cinemalaya and head of the competition section. But there are a host of younger people who are making waves internationally. People like Raymond Red (Golden Palm at Cannes 2000 for his short film Anino) Lav Diaz whose films range in duration from six to 11 hours, John Torres, Jerrold Tarog, the award-winning Jeffrey Jeturian… The Raya Martin and Adolfo B. Alix’s co-directed Manila — a homage to Lino Brocka’s Manila in the Claws of Neon and Ishmael Bernal’s Manila by Night (the title had to be changed into City After Dark at Imelda Marcos’ behest because she thought it gave Manila a bad name!) opened the Festival, Raya Martin’s Independencia, a strange tale of the (American) colonial era, set in the forests evoking the early 20th century, had a special screening. Both these films were in the official section of Cannes earlier this year.

Ten features competed for 13 awards, for everything from best film to best sound, production design, supporting actor and actres. Each film got something — the most uncompromising of them, the hour-long Engkwetro (Encounter) won its 21-year-old first time director Pepe Diokno, a jury special mention. Ten short fiction films competed for four awards. It was first-time filmmaker Guiseppe Bede Sampedro (very popular concert, music video, TVshows director) who carried away Best Director and three more awards for Astig (Squalor), and Mendoza’s scriptwriter, Ralston Jover directing his first film Bakal Boys who won the Netpac prize. The Best Feature went to a charming comedy Last Supper No. 3.

The jury was composed of three Filipinos — Chito Rono, actress Cherry Pie Picache (she won Best Actress at Osian’s Cinefan in 2007 in Brillante Mendoza’s Foster Child), and Mark Vincent Escaler (a professor of film and Media Studies and coincidentally Mike de Leon’s nephew!), along with Aude Hesbert who is the director of the Paris Cinema International Film Festival in France, and myself from India. The 10 shorts were of a high standard, ranging from conventional narrative, to highly personal forays into the world of the imaginary. The Filipino filmmakers are not afraid of breaking rules, they are not restricted by the fear of not finding funding or a showplace for their work; they are in the fortunate position of being given the opportunity to give free rein to their imagination. That perhaps is what makes their films so original and what makes Cinemalaya a unique festival.

Aruna Vasudev is an eminent film critic who has been on the jury of major film festivals around the world

Cinemas of the South

Asian — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 01:00:09 GMT

Aruna Vasudev

Cines del Sur, Cinemas of the South, is what the magical city of Granada in southern Spain, chose to call its film festival set up three years ago. Such was the preparation that clearly went into it that today it can hold its own against the many long-established Festivals anywhere in the world.

Why Cinemas of the South only? Partly its own history — Granada was ruled for six hundred years by the Moors and the indescribably magnificent Alhambra is within walking distance of the city centre and the links are still perceptible — partly the fact that Morocco lies just a few sea miles away, but principally the vision of those that created the Festival. They chose the cinemas of the South, they say, "for the beauty of each region, the mysteries of each country’s history, the musicality of distant latitudes, the drama of other worlds…"

Not content with showing the films alone, they try and bring each of these three regions alive through different events that complement the festival. For the second time this year, was a special programme for schools to encourage students to develop a critical eye and enhance not only their ability to think critically about the images they are watching but equally about the values and cultures those images reflect; to think interculturally as much as cinematically. AulaSur, as this programme is called, tries to "provide young people with a vision of other realities that form part of today’s world…". For them, as for the many visitors to the Festival from Granada and from beyond the seas, was a four-part photo exhibition from China of different works by Zhang Yuan plus a music video by Cui Jian, perhaps the earliest music video in China made in 1991.

The photos from the short films Zhang Yuan made vary from images of Tiananmen Square to the sex change operation of one of his actors, shot seven years apart. He wrote that he hoped through this exhibition "to fix the flowing pictures from my movies into photos one by one and record the days that we will never, never forget". Two more exhibitions beckoned: Abandoned Spaces by Dalia Khamissy of spaces in Lebanon — homes, buildings, mosques — all invaded by the war and then abandoned; the presence of film images in art centres and museums in the works of Argentinean David Lamel – talked of as the first post-national artist.

How much can the mind absorb, how much time is there for this in addition to the many films, and the many museums, churches, squares, cafes and restaurants, the delicious streets to wander in, the Alhambra which one can return to again and again...

There is a surfeit of offerings at the Cines del Sur! The Festival also held four workshops, on animation by the Andalusian filmmaker Rocio Huertas, one on acting, another on video creation only for women by Egyptian Amal Ramsis, herself a director, journalist and editor and Spanish-Arabic translator. As if this were not enough, there was also the third meeting of the Southern Film Festivals, another initiative of the Granada film festival to bring the Festivals of the South together (The Trivandrum Film Festival is a founding member), and a co-production meeting for Andalusian and international producers and directors. Shivajee Chandrabhushan whose Frozen won the Best Director plus the Audience award last year, came back this year for the co-production meeting with his project which is already fairly well advanced. He accepted the Audience prize for this year’s winner, the animation film $9.99 by Tatia Rosenthal, who was not present, with a charming speech where he said, among other things, that filmmakers must accept their responsibility in this fractured world. The main prize was taken by The Other Bank, a moving and very strong film by Georgian George Ovashvili.

Another remarkable aspect of this festival is their publications of at least two solid books in Spanish and in English. This year there was one on Souleyman Cisse, the Malian director who first brought African cinema to the international stage, winning the Jury prize at Cannes in 1987 with his Brightness. (He also came to International Film Festival of India in Bombay in the 90s but has never, alas, been back.) Entitled With the Eyes of Eternity it is the first book on this remarkable man to whom the Festival paid homage this time. The other book on a theme which paralleled a section of the festival, is on Foreign Filmmakers in Cuban Cinema of the 1960s — Outsiders in Paradise. The films focused on the Cuban Revolution seen through the eyes of foreign filmmakers.

The films were everywhere, in quite unusual variety. And the screenings themselves were special as they moved out in the evenings, from the theatres into the open-air. Two screenings every evening, one against the walls of the great Cathedral in the centre of Granada, one against the walls of the Alhambra where the opening and closing ceremonies were also held. The Taiwanese super-hit Cape No. 7 opened the festival, the very political Mexican Tear This Heart Out, closed it.

Apart from the official competition with a jury composed of people from all three continents plus one from Italy, and for the first time this year a Netpac award in recognition of this organisation which has been assiduously promoting Asian cinema in Asia and around the world — were sections of films on Andalusians and the South, a Mediterranean section, a fascinating one on Nollywood, the Nigerian video boom which has become a remarkable showcase for African popular culture and has injected a new energy into African filmmakers. It is a little like what is happening here in India in Malegaon, but in a pan-African manner. Participating in the round table was Peace Anyiam-Fiberesima. She is the founder and president of the African Film Academy and was a member of the Festival jury, along with actress Rana Sultan from Jordan, Aruna Vasudev from India, Italian Leonardo de Franceschi who teaches film at Rome Tre University, with Arturo Ripstein, the most widely-known and highly respected Mexican director as jury president. Such an eclectic group meant that the jury discussions were long, argumentative though not acrimonious, and fascinating as each one brought their knowledge and experience of their countries or regions to the table, but not necessarily a thorough grounding in the cinemas of the other regions. It is an occupational hazard when you put together a jury to judge films not as familiar and well-known to all as the European or American cinema. This, precisely, is what the Granada festival is trying to change. Through bringing film people from the three regions together to familiarise them with each other’s cinemas. The attempt alone is heightening awareness of the preoccupation we in these three continents still have with the west, and making a concerted effort to overcome it.

Film projects a new N. Korea

Asian — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:59:04 GMT

LATIKA PADGAONKAR

In a first of its kind documentary from North Korea — one of the world’s most isolated countries — French director-producer N.C. Heiken opens the door to a devastated and forlorn land that has been trying the international community’s patience in recent years over its nuclear programme. Which is perhaps the only reason why North Korea has sailed into our consciousness. For the rest, it is a forgotten and failed state. When it isn’t confrontationist, it is a backwater, plagued by floods and famine and governed by dictators. This is how little we know of it – or care.

But now comes a documentary that blows the lid off its secrets and lies and confirms our worst fears about wanton savagery and human rights abuse. The film, first shown at the Sundance Festival earlier this year, shows how the frightening demons of the country’s past continue to hold centre-stage, how its brutish Soviet-style propaganda machine is cranking away, and how the totalitarianism of the state remains intact. North Korea is an anachronism in the 21st century, and Kimjongilia (2009) tells us why.

Kimjongilia is the name of a flower, a hybrid begonia, bred for leader Kim Jong-Il’s 46th birthday (he was born in 1941 and is rumoured to be suffering from terminal cancer). It represents justice, wisdom, love and peace — a bitterly ironic title, for a people who knew none of it. The film is a series of interviews with a dozen or so North Koreans who, quite incredibly, escaped to the South and lived to tell their tale.

Brilliant but bleak, the film is, however, more than just interviews, although what emerges from the refugees’ stories is enough to rustle up images of Stalin’s Soviet land and Orwell’s 1984. It’s a list of indescribables: corruption, bribery, extensive famine, repression, brainwashing, surveillance and total control over every aspect of life, imprisonment, extreme torture, forced labour, public executions, concentration camps (who thought there were any after Stalin and Hitler, but North Korea has its own hidden gulags). People are jailed for knowing about the private lives of VIPs, about the lump in the Dear Leader’s neck, for spreading a newspaper on the ground with the Leader’s picture, for listening to South Korean radio or even for having a voice that sounds capitalist! Hiding food in camps or not working hard enough are good reasons for the firing squad to fire away before helpless family members.

Such are the personal stories of these escapes. Using a variety of techniques and musical scores (piano, viola, violin, cello and song), Heikin creates a moving and imaginative cinema. The tragic and grotesque story she tells is not one of talking heads alone. The heads themselves are sometimes framed as closeups, sometimes as fragmented and tight close-ups of eyes or lips, sometimes filling the screen, at other times filling half or a quarter of the screen, sometimes even blurring the image.

These she intercuts with a range of extraordinary shots: army orchestras, parades of vainglorious soldiers, performances, march pasts, salutes — a throwback to the Soviet-style shows on the Red Square — splendid and colourful celebratory spectacles and perfect gymnastics worthy of an Olympic opening, romantic landscapes full of flowers and dreams, clips from earlier films of young girls exulting at being where they were; black and white pictures of the divine Dear Leader and his father Kim Il-Sung, surrounded by happy faces and reverential bows, to whom families said grace before meals, their eyes moist with gratitude at the sacrifices he had made and the burden he was carrying. For they were superhuman, these leaders, they were Gods who could be here, there and everywhere at once.

Heiken weaves into her story satellite images of labour camp locations, graphics, kitschy paintings, landscapes, plays, animated graphics and a brief historical timeline. But by far the most artistic and poignant element is her inclusion of interpretative dance, part ballet, past traditional Korean (the director has been a student of dance) to enhance the image, to contradict it, to flow with it or to reinforce its bitterness.

Who is listening to the pleas of the North Koreans? No one, at least not unless such documentaries are shown in festivals. "We can’t see, listen, eat, smell, speak… (we are) bound by wires…" says a refugee. And it shows in the skeletal figures of the people. There was a time when they were told (ordered) to be happy with two meals. Many were reduced to selling their possessions, their homes; they resorted to eating grass, roots, barks, even mice to survive. Some assert that people have stopped working for twenty years. Soldiers, too, were malnourished, even as the Party ordered farmers to grow opium. Lakhs died of starvation. Those who fled were stunned to see what existed in the real world and to at last confront the world they left behind as one based on one big, unending lie.

Kimjongilia must be seen and heard to be believed. These stark, bold, sorrowful and indignant testimonies provided by artists, farmers, armymen and housewives finally half-open a door to a country the world has neglected and its dictators decimated.

Cinema of West Asia: A past ever present

Asian — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:17:21 GMT

Latika Padgaonkar

Almost inevitably, films from West Asia keep returning to their immediate, painful, oftentimes deadly past, a past that is playing out into a present where the word normalcy has been turned on its head.

Where better to see a clutch of the latest Arab features, documentaries and shorts than at the Arab Film Festival Rotterdam (AFFR, 10-14 June) whose clear focus is, in the words of its president Khaled Chouket, "to contribute to the struggle against the culture of radicalisation and extremism in which, unfortunately, a small part of the Arab minority in Holland is involved".

In its ninth edition now, the festival has preferred to play it small and safe. Several artistic schemes and events launched by Arabs in the Netherlands have folded up for lack of funds. AFFR would rather be regular than overambitious. It runs with minimum costs, shuns stars and stardom. Even so, to keep it going is a challenge.

That an Arab film festival should be held in Rotterdam is probably apt. With the larger, more prestigious International Film Festival of Rotterdam held in January-February every year, there is already a groundswell of support for cinema. By presenting the latest and the most important Arab films produced every year, AFFR tries to meet the expectations of the Arab community and of the growing Dutch audience, says AFFR artistic director Intishal al Timimi. In 2001, the city was named the cultural capital of Europe, and that was when money was available for an all-Arab event.

Besides, Rotterdam, the embodiment of multiculturalism, has a Muslim population of 13 per cent, and a Moroccan-born Muslim, Ahmed Aboutaleb, as its mayor.

Among the 40-odd features, documentaries and shorts from every country in the Arab world — from Morocco to Iraq — what seized my attention was the cinema of the region. Tense, troubled films from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine seem to be indissolubly linked to their times: to wars, invasions, occupation, repressions, resistance, return. They present their makers’ deepest and most personal responses to the tragic stories of this region.

Among the shorts, Mesopotamia by Iraqi director Fenar Ahmed, looks ahead at the year 2020 when the coalition forces have left, civil war has gripped the country and a bunch of people are desperately hiding underground. In Ali the Iraqi by Lebanese director Vatche Boulghourjian, young Ali who has migrated to the United States with his father, is torn between assimilating and rejecting his new environment, between his various identities as an Arab, a Muslim and an Iraqi in America. And in Fatoush, Hisham Abdel Kahlek from Egypt explores what it would mean if Israel and Palestine were to become one country.

Lebanese director Simon El Habre’s The One Man Village is poignant documentary on the daily life of the single man — his uncle — left behind in a small village outside Beirut. The other inhabitants have fled many years ago during the 15-year civil war that raged in the country, and the film touches lightly, effortlessly on the larger issues of war, peace and displacement. In Iraq: Open Shutters, Iraqi director Maysoon Pachachi follows five women who have been brought together and taught how to handle a camera. The camera then becomes an instrument of self-awareness as they learn, take pictures and speak for once about their shattered lives and a savage war which has left no family untouched. Music, on the other hand, replaces the camera in Elyes Baccar’s Music Says (Tunisia). It becomes the saviour of the children living in the Deheisha refugee camp in Palestine, the vehicle for an expression of their unnamed fears and unrecognised anxieties in an environment perennially under threat.

Perforated Memory (Jordan) by Sandra Madi speaks of a group of ex-fidayeen, once the heroes of the Palestinian revolution, now neglected, worn-out and miserable. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein’s deportation in 1980-82 of some five lakh Iraqis accused of being of Iranian origin is the subject of 80-82 by Hameed Haddad. Where did these people disperse, and what did they find in Iraq when they returned after the fall of the regime? And in Virus, Iraqi director Jamal Amin places five friends, all refugees in Denmark, together in a minibus that quickly becomes a microcosm of their country. What begins as a light-hearted trip turns near-explosive as the five who belong to different sects, regions and political persuasions battle over the problems that shake Iraq.

Pomegranates and Myrrh, Palestinian director Najwa Nejjar’s award-winning feature film, is a simple yet powerful story of love and freedom under Israeli occupation, of arrests for the flimsiest of reasons, of illegal detentions, squatters on the land and soldiers in the streets. Into this Nejjar weaves a love of dance of the young bride, a nascent love affair and the moral strictures she faces, all of which make for an intimate work on how a woman might face reality in today’s Palestine. Hatem Ali’s dark yet deeply humane film, The Long Night (Syria), is a comment on a system that jails political dissidents for as long as long as 20 years and then one day unexpectedly releases them. How do families adjust themselves to this unexpected return? And what do the prisoners themselves do? Do they, can they cope? The Long Night is a metaphor for the one unreleased prisoner, a Shakespearean theatre actor, the one who gets left behind.

Over the years, the complexities of life in Beirut have given rise to a number of interesting, sometimes despairing films. In Beirut Open City, Egyptian director Samir Habchi has a photojournalist investigate the brutal interrogation methods used against political dissidents during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in the ’90s, while in Basra, Ahmed Rashwan, also from Egypt, asks questions of life and death, also through the eyes of a photographer on the eve of the American invasion.

Taken together, films from the West Asian/North African region exhibit an enormous artistic resilience and diversity. That they are entangled in a distressing history gives them an urgency, a vital feel, sometimes even a rough edge as though these stories must be told before it is too late.

The Power of the Short Film

Asian — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:41:57 GMT

By Aruna Vasudev

Suddenly, documentary and short films are the order of the day. And Delhi is witnessing a wave of festivals dedicated to the works of short filmmakers of all hues and impressive ability. With the new technology making it affordable to express your imagination without the heavy hand of producers and distributors concerned primarily with returns on investment, it is exhilarating to see how much talent there is in the country. The quite surprising aspect is that there are increasingly large audiences for these films, countering the dismissive assumption that "nobody wants to see documentaries". People do. Perhaps they have had their fill of a make-believe world of unadulterated "entertainment".

And the "documentary" is no longer confined to its earlier definition. It is feature, it is installation, it is whatever you wish it to be, and comes with a direct engagement with the audience.

The wave has been coming for some time with small festivals of short and documentary films being held quietly, with patience and persistence, by some dedicated people and organisations. The Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) in Delhi was perhaps the first in 2001, holding public screenings of the documentaries it had been making for Doordarshan, along with some international films.

From the very beginning, this Festival became a hub for young people with dreams of making films, films that have content and meaning. Last year, PSBT added to that increasingly significant event a thematic one on Gender and Sexuality Through Film and now, just recently, one on Making Migrant Dialogue through Film. A film like A Forgotten People: The Sakhalin Koreans about the tragic saga of Koreans taken by the Japanese to Sakhalin island as forced labour, then abandoned to the Soviet Union in 1945 and forgotten by their own country which then became divided into North and South Korea. It is the same story told in the brilliant Korean feature film Myung-ja, Akiko, Sonia. In the troubled world of today, one needs to be reminded of the fate of people controlled by circumstances in which they have no voice. This was one of the 12 films on the same theme of displacement.

The Magic Lantern organisation, under the inspired direction of Gargi Sen, herself a filmmaker, has been promoting short and documentary films for many years; last year it launched into what is going to be an annual festival where it is not just films being shown on a screen but as installations outdoors with lively interactive sessions between the audience and the directors. Their focus is principally on India and Indian directors — although international films are also shown. They now have plans to expand this festival to include directors from South Asia in their forthcoming edition. Jai Chandiram, head of the India wing of the International Association of Women in Radio & Television, has been presenting a festival of shorts — by Asian women directors only — for a few years now. And the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts & Communication is perhaps the only teaching institute that holds an annual short film festival with two separate competitive sections by students and by professionals. This time around the consensus was that the student films were better than the ones by the professionals. An indication that when the imagination is allowed to roam free the result is greater creativity? It would certainly appear to be so.

Winter in Delhi is when all this usually happens. This year there has been, for the fifth successive year, the Tri-Continental Film Festival presented by the India chapter of the international human rights organisation Breakthrough. The Festival began in Latin America in 2002, in Africa in 2003 and in Asia in 2004. It has, as they say, "become the primary platform for human rights cinema for the three continents that form part of the global South". It began in India in 2004 and this year it is travelling from Delhi on to Mumbai, Goa, Bangalore and Kolkata. During the course of the year these films will also be screened at universities and citizens groups, engaging the audiences in dialogues on human rights. This is very much a part of the pattern that Magic Lantern has also been following, working at grassroots levels, going across the country, bringing issues alive through the films they show, getting people involved in them with the hope of shaking them out of their placidity into taking on a more active role.

The films in the Tri Continental Festival were illuminating, disturbing, thought-provoking. You come away from each film marked by the experience. Nothing left you cold or indifferent. They are films of deep humanism — even those that talk of the inhumanity of man towards mankind. Some lift your heart as they show what people can do and have done to change a mindset, a situation of violence, of cruelty. Oddly enough the two films that won the award equally (judged by an international jury), have the same theme, the same subject: what women have done to change men; to turn them away from the path of violence, onto the path of peace. In Pray the Devil Back to Hell, it is a group of Liberian women who took the initiative and brought an end to the bloody civil war, reconciling the Muslims and the Christians and voting in the first woman in Africa as the President. In The Sari Soldiers, it is the extraordinary efforts of six courageous Nepalese women — led by a mother who witnessed her 15-year-old daughter being tortured and murdered by the army — to reshape Nepal’s future in the midst of the civil war between the Army and the Maoists.

That these two award-winning films show how women have succeeded holds out the hope that perhaps if women took charge everywhere, this could happen the world over.

Dare one hope? There Was a Queen is set in Kashmir where in 17 years of conflict, women have been the worst sufferers. Now they, too, are joining initiatives to end the tyranny and the terror. On That Day shows human rights abuses at its worst through the Haditha incident in Iraq with American soldiers trying to cover up their actions; Total Denial is the victory of 15 Burmese victims of the terrible abuses ordinary people suffered as pipelines were laid by a foreign company through their villages.

The US court gave them justice despite resistance from the Bush administration.

The situation was not entirely one of despair as Flying Inside My Body focuses on the gay community in the world of the arts in India.

Films of all sizes and shapes, subjects and themes, films that stir you and jolt you and force you to think. Films also that make you dream, believe, hope.

Films of fire and intensity by people who believe the world can be changed if only we, the audience, shake off the apathy into which "entertainment" lulls us and start questioning, if not actually doing. For it is questioning, and listening, and seeing, even that which is far removed from our comfortable, unthinking existence that can make us aware of the world around us and hopefully, change it.

Aruna Vasudev is an eminent film critic and has served on the jury of several top international

film festivals

Abu Dhabi puts up lavish cine fare

Asian — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:03:40 GMT

By Aruna Vasudev

Not to be outdone by Dubai, which started its international film festival some years ago, Abu Dhabi decided to launch its own festival from 2007. One word encapsulates the spirit with which they went into their second edition of MEIFF (Middle East International Film Festival) in October 2008 - "lavish". Lavish in scale and in grandeur, lavish in the prize money given to the large number of award-winners in its two competition sections, lavish in warmth and hospitality, in the invitations to prominent guests from around the world.

It more than made up for the limitations of Abu Dhabi itself. "Dubai is the happening place," friends from that emirate said. "There's nothing to do in Abu Dhabi." I have never been to Dubai, but having been told stories of the building frenzy there and the endless landscape of malls and shopping and residential complexes, I wasn't tempted. Instead, I fell under the spell of Abu Dhabi's pristine beaches and the endless vista of empty sea. No ships in the distance, no holidaymakers frolicking about noisily, nothing! Obviously it won't last much longer, but for now to be in a place where the sands stretch for miles with not a soul in sight, to walk along this beach in the evening with a full moon rising over the domes (of the Emirates Palace Hotel - the only building for miles around) to the sound only of the waves of the sea, is a rare privilege. It is what Bom Bai ("Beautiful Bay", as the Portuguese named Mumbai) must have been like many centuries back.

The delegates to the film festival, over a hundred of us, were divided between the Emirates Palace and the Intercontinental hotels. As a member of the jury I was in the Emirates Palace in a magnificent room with a very large balcony overlooking "the lonely sea and the sky". The privilege of being in the VIP part of this palatial hotel was offset by the half-kilometre walk to the restaurant where we had breakfast, and almost as far from there to the large cinema two floors below where many of the festival screenings and activities took place. It was on the beach in front of this area of the hotel that the parties were held, starting only at 11.30 pm. Wine and food flowed freely at the Bedouin Party, the Bollywood Night - any excuse for a party after the hard work of watching films all day.

Just about every festival in the world aims to be like Cannes, with its fabled beach parties, but Abu Dhabi has the physical attributes - and the wherewithal - to match at least that aspect of the mother of all festivals.

There were plenty of films - two competitions (one for features, one for shorts), with the screenings held at the Emirates Palace theatre and at cineplexes in two of Abu Dhabi's fancy malls. Films came from all over the world, but shorts from the Arab countries left a deep and lasting impression. The prizewinner from Jordan (which came with no less than $75,000 - an enviable amount even for a feature, except that here the prize for the Best Feature came with $200,000), where the film industry is still in a nascent stage, although shorts and documentaries are made for television, proved how much the imagination can do to make up for lack of resources. Made by the Amman Filmmakers Cooperative, The View has the camera fixed on a single shot - through the viewfinder of a gun trained on the window of a room in the building across the road. It is only the voice of the (Israeli) sniper we hear as he comments to his commander on what he - and we - are seeing. How can 17 minutes of a fixed shot and a monologue make a "film", one might well ask? But here they do, and explore a range of emotions and thoughts -none of them pretty.

There seems to be an explosion of short films and documentaries across the world. As if rendered helpless in an increasingly controlled world, filmmakers are giving vent to their frustration and anger through strongly committed films. The styles range from gentle irony to hard-hitting reportage. Either way the underlying feeling they convey is of an uncontainable anger and despair at a world spinning inexorably out of control in the hands of incompetent at best, crooked at worst, "leaders". At Abu Dhabi's Middle East International Film Festival, there were a large number of films on such themes, and they left you shaken.

Feature films too were not lacking in similar themes. A Retrospective of Palestinian Films, a section of films by Arab Women Directors, all confronted critical issues, including the condition of women. The celebrated Palestinian director Rashid Mashrawi's new film which premiered here, Laila's Birthday, follows a lawyer-turned-taxi driver through one day which happens to be his little daughter Laila's birthday. Alternating between light-hearted encounters to the humiliation and helplessness of living in the Palestinian territories today, it makes an enduring impact, leaving you wondering how the world can sit back quietly and let things be the way they are. But not only in the Arab world! Disquieting films by Indian filmmakers on India, Americans on their country's activities, films from Lebanon, even from Iraq, films dealing with immigrants and refugees, on forced displacement and a rising wave of intolerance the world over. Girish Kasaravalli's Gulabi Talkies, which was in competition at MEIFF, forces one to confront the tide of communalism rising along the coastal belt of Karnataka. The fine filmmaker that he is, Kasaravalli does not underline this. It emerges slowly in the course of the film centred on Gulabi and her passion for cinema. Leavened with humour, with the light touch of an assured director, Kasaravalli allows the issue to take over, slowly, insidiously. Of course there were plenty of films that did not take a confrontational stand. Fawzia - A Special Blend, from Egypt, is a raucous comedy where love and hope triumph over the harsh conditions of daily life.

Cinema brings it all alive, a country, a people, an issue, a situation. Such is the power of this incredible medium!

The writer is an eminent film critic who has been on the jury of major film festivals around the world

Pandit’s Bombay Jazz takes a European trip

Asian — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:06:59 GMT

By Pramita Bose

This desi Pied Piper promenading down the musical turnpike lures in countless listeners with his lilting tunes. But this time, he returns with his flute in hand from Holland instead of Hamelin after mesmerising a packed gallery of music-enthusiasts with his soulful strains. However, this potion of hypnotism that transports an avid audience into a trance comes from an Indian bansuri and not a western gizmo. Among the ace Indian flautists of the young, contemporary league, Ranendranath Majumdar aka Pandit Ronu Majumdar is a name to reckon with much reverence. An ardent devotee of the classical wind instrument, Majumdar’s virtuoso on the bamboo badyayantra is beyond debate. Blowing the flute through reeds of agony and ecstasy, this versatile musician rendered a powerhouse performance in sync with his troupe, Bombay Jazz. "This European sojourn was a part of a group concert which was hosted on a large canvas, featuring all artistes of international repute. It was a grand affair revolving around world music. Our performance was staged on November 20 at the capital city of Amsterdam. The elaborate musical event was called Amsterdam India Festival and its name is taken in the same breath with the top-notch open-air Montreal Jazz Fest or the Womad cultural carnival in London, wherein people from across the globe troop in to enrich their ears and cultivate a keen sense of music.

For those not tuned in, Bombay Jazz also comprises adept acoustic guitarist Larry Coryel and distinguished American jazz exponent George Brooks, whose superlative specialisations in tenor sax or simple saxophone speaks volumes for his gifted calibre. "He once came to perform in Mumbai and then we forged a bond and formed this band in 2003. This apart, our regular feature from the homefront is the rocking keyboardist Atul Raninga of Bollywood fame, who is credited with the background score in Munnabhai MBBS. Besides, Louis Banks and Mukul Dongre off and on pitch in their contributions to the musical outfit. Earlier, prolific percussionist and a dynamic drummer Sivamani too formed an integral part of the band. Incidentally, presenting Bombay Jazz was a blessing in disguise at the prestigious platform, because Brooks was the only tenor sax player in the festival that helped inducing a pizzazz of jazz into our troupe," he reveals.

From folksy flavours, classical raaga hansadhwani, use of Dancing With The Winds — a composition from his album Fusion Yatra — an euphonious overture with noted composer Louis Banks to a creative piece called Ronew that signifies a new-age and innovative endeavour from Ronu the creator himself, the band attempted to dole out a "unity in diversity" compilation on the dais. Interestingly, the offbeat repertoire of renditions combined a balm of blues in jazz.

Born and brought up in the sacred religious town of Benaras, Majumdar is otherwise bound to his rich Bengali roots. He began fiddling with the flute under the able guidance of his respected father Dr Bhanu Majumdar. And later on, the ripples of rhythm started flowing through his facile pair of hands by virtue of his phenomenal talent. Late Pandit Laxman Prasad Jaipurwale and Pandit Vijay Raghav Rao afterwards moulded his clay of craft to a model of perfection. As an instrument, the flute is considered to be the most ancient and natural medium. This principal pastoral device was then left to the genius of late pioneering flute maestro Pandit Pannalal Ghosh to levitate it to the height of a concert instrument. Ghosh gave the bansuri an independent identity among the acknowledged accompaniment of traditional Indian instruments. He is always hailed as the father of modern long bansuri and a forerunner of Hindustani classical music on the bansuri.

"Ages ago, Ghosh had raised this soothing fife to a different stratum altogether," says Ronu.

In recent times, Majumdar’s much-touted project — Ronu & Friends has lodged a huge grosser in the music mart. Having hit the stores with a lucrative sales figure, this "food of love" from the master musician’s heart was conceptualised with a noble thought of encapsulating the complete journey of an artiste’s struggle to stardom. "This particular record with both my predecessors as well as the contemporaries coalesces our close camaraderie with good old pals from this music fraternity".

Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Kunwar Rajendra Singh, Ustad Taufique Qureshi, Pandit Tarun Bhattacharya, Bombay S. Jayshri, et al are to name a few who have collaborated with him on this wonderful album.

Pt. Ronu Majumdar will perform at the All Bengal Music Fest in Kolkata. on January 9, 2009

Numerology rules Bollywood

Asian — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:21:55 GMT

Nikhil Agarwal

TRUST SINGER-turned-actor Himesh Reshammiya to take things to unheard of lengths.

A firm believer in nu-merology, his latest film is called A Love Issshtory. Really. And another is called Karzzzz.

"He follows numerology. Having an understanding of numerology, he does all the spellings himself," a Mumbai-ba-sed numerologist said.

An extra 'k' here, an extra 'z' there. This is how many Bollywood titles now read. From Heyy Babyy to Singh is Kinng, using additional letters has become routine, thanks to increasing influence of numerology.

It began as an obsession with 'k', only to spread among producers and actors alike.

Directors and producers are no more hesitating to consult professi-onal numerologists be-fore finalising the name of their films. "Many people from the film industry consult us. Many actors, producers and directors are our regular clients," says Swetta Jhumani, a Pune-based numerologist. "Whatever recognition we have today is because of our Bollywood clients."

Rakesh Roshan's bru-sh with numerology be-gan with Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai, where two extra 'a's were added on the recommendation of the Jhumani family.

The film went on to become one of the big-gest hits of all time. Since then, Roshan has followed numerology in his subsewuent films - Koi Mil Gaya, Krrish and Krazzy 4.

Directors Vipul Shah, John Matthew Matthan and Sangeet Shivan consult numerologists. "I added an extra 'y' to Vipul Shah's Namas-tey London and Sajid Nadiadwala's Heyy Babyy. Both wor-ked well at the box office," says Niraj Mancchanda, a numerologist working out of Mumbai.

-PTI

Chetan Bhagat set for a hat-trick

Asian — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:45:21 GMT

Pramita Bose

Chetan Bhagat is on the verge of scoring a cinematic hat-trick. His first two books, Five Point Someone (2004) and One Night @ The Call Centre (2005), successful by themselves, are being made into films. And now his latest, The Three Mistakes of My Life, is on the verge of joining the list.

Bhagat, named the most successful Indian author by the New York Times, explains just why it is easy to make films of his books. "My readers are not just located in the cosmopolitan metros or around the affluent areas of so-called big cities but are scattered across all regions down to the small towns, in the suburban pockets and along the outskirts," he says.

"My books are set in the ‘India of now’, dealing with the aspirations of the young, middle class Indians, written in the language they actually speak and think in," says Bhagat whose style mimics R.K. Narayan’s simple style in his classic Malgudi Days,

"We feel we are a privileged class belonging to the upmarket cities. However, the roots of the real India are set in the core of smaller towns. My characters don’t find scope to hit the discs or the pubs, plush shopping malls or the swanky hookah bars. But they have stories to reveal and share with the likeminded age-group of readers," he explains.

The Three Mistakes of My Life weaves a plot around three business, cricket and religion. It revolves around the life of a young boy in Ahmedabad called Govind, who dreams of floating a business with two friends, Ish and Omi.

He opens a cricket shop, pooling in a huge investment in late 2000 but nothing comes easy. Based on real-life events, the story is set against the backdrop of the 2001 earthquake, followed by the post-Godhra carnage of February 2002 and the hardships that the trio face.

Five Point Someone is being made into a film, Idiots, by Raj Kumar Hirani of Munnabhai series. Aamir Khan is slated to play a pivotal character in the film to be produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

The buzz is that Ranbir Kapoor of Saawariya and Bachna Aye Haseeno could be signed for the film, along with Kareena Kapoor as the love-interest opposite Aamir Khan’s protagonist.

One Night @ The Call Centre of course is being filmed as Hello starring Salman Khan-Katrina Kaif and others. Produced by Paul Parmar, the film also features Sharman Joshi, Sohail Khan, Gul Panag, Isha Koppikar, Amrita Arora, Dalip Tahil and Suresh Menon.

Of the film, Bhagat says, "the film unfolds an esoteric, murky night when dreams will finally crumble. Or will it? For, there is that call from God." Credited with the scriptwriting for Hello from the original — that almost read as a script — Bhagat agrees that conjuring up a screenplay is tougher than composing a novel.

"To condense a 250-page book into a three-hour script is a challenging proposition. Most of the dialogues of Hello were scrawled in Hinglish," he admits. Also busy scripting another project, Bhagat declines to divulge it further. "It’s too premature to talk about it at the moment. But given the funstreak in me, it will be another superfun film. And it will be totally hatke (different) for sure."

Let’s have Gandhi VS Munnabhai

Asian — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:22:19 GMT

Ranjan Kamath

In the summer of 1995, a documentary commissioned by Channel Four, the UK, introduced me to Video Sewa, an initiative of the SEWA trade union founded by Ela Bhatt.

Inspired by a project in Mali, West Africa, Ela Bhatt established Video Sewa in 1984 with one set of production equipment. With three weeks of training, 20 illiterate women memorised the placement of functions on the equipment and its usage, after which they progressed towards a functional literacy with 20 video terms.

I met the legendary Urmilaben - a vegetable vendor - who had made a film about the eviction and harassment of street vendors by the Ahmedabad police, presented the evidence to the Supreme Court and won a stay! These illiterate vendors and workers of different ages, from diverse communities and walks of life had experienced empowerment and most importantly broken the barriers of illiteracy, with the words 'rewind', 'play' and 'fast forward'.

While Urmilaben was grappling at the deep end of visual literacy, I had just graduated. I subjected myself to self-indoctrination in learning to 'read' a film, to appreciate every nuance, turn of visual phrase and recognise what was good, bad and utterly ugly. This process involved watching up to three films a day, in various languages, from various corners of the world, ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime!

When Urmilaben was making her films with a minimum of video technology, I had graduated from film school and was using sophisticated and very expensive mammoths to film stories for the BBC and Channel Four. With the advent of the digital age in the mid '90s, I was eventually able to purchase one of the first DV cameras in India, much cheaper, much smaller, yet still way beyond the means of most Indians.

Fifteen years later, India is enamoured by the camera; everyone is making a short film using their cell phones, while the rest spend their waking hours titillated by the moving image through television, computer or the movies.

While the moving image mesmerises India, there is a vacuum in the sphere of visual literacy - the ability to make the leap from titillation to discernment of the moving image for quality and content. To address this vacuum, requires and initiative to harness the enormous potential of the Indian passion for cinema to facilitate 'learning through seeing'.

The caveman first drew pictures, and then followed the written word; the Egyptians followed with hieroglyphics many thousand years later and for Urmilaben in Ahmedabad, video icons preceded the written word at the end of the 20th century.

The efficacy of cinema in breaching barriers is beyond doubt. Decades ago Raj Kapoor's films penetrated the Iron Curtain; more recently Bollywood has breached the language barrier popularising Hindi on the streets of the southern India, something government policies couldn't accomplish.

Just as Urmilaben breached barriers of literacy through video, cinema can expedite literacy for the nation through the 'reading' of the visual image, that in turn can transform a nation of film buffs into film 'readers' and 'speakers' of the moving image.

If India has to encourage its millions towards literacy, that certainly will not happen with chalk and slate. It will happen cheaply, effectively and on a considerable scale by employing the moving image to spark the imagination, trigger learning and literacy will follow.

Visual literacy has to be unshackled from the ivory tower confines of departments of film and media studies. Cinema as a language ought to be 'read' in schools and colleges complementing English, Hindi and regional languages.

Long years ago, it was easier to see Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy at the National Film Theatre in London than in Kolkata. To have experienced cinema from Latin America, Eastern Europe or Africa placed one amongst the crème de la crème of the visually literate. Today, there is a surfeit of world cinema on television, with Kurosawa, Bergman, Truffaut and other great story-tellers available in profusion.

It therefore becomes eminently achievable to breach the barriers of parochialism and expand the horizons of our children in villages and cities by facilitating access to world cinema.

In being exposed to the good, the bad and utter rubbish evolves the appreciation of the finest that the moving image has to offer. Visual literacy will pressurise Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood and Mollywood to desist from dishing out drivel. No longer will the advertiser treat children like a cakewalk with puerile commercials on national networks.

Let Attenborough's Gandhi contrasted with Lagey Raho Munnabhai inspire the youth to find the real Gandhi. Do they prefer to be motivated by the values and ethics of Chariots of Fire or Chak De India? Would they want to effect change as depicted in Dead Poets' Society or Rang De Basanti? Could they be sensitised to restore the primacy of family by watching Kramer vs Kramer and Masoom?

Later in the 21st century, language might play second fiddle to the moving image. Just like our knowledge of English has propelled India in the era of the knowledge economy, our passion for the moving image could be that competitive advantage that continues to keep us at the forefront, if we press 'fast forward'.

Corporates endanger Cinema

Asian — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:27:08 GMT

K. Hariharan

The nomenclature "corporate" seems opposed to the concept of ‘independent’ cinema. Strangely, some of the better examples of independent cinema like Mithya or Taare Zameen Par seem to have come out of corporate-based productions and distribution outlets. This March saw one of the biggest gatherings of corporate media CEOs, VPs, and executives at the FICCI Frames 2008 discussing the future of Indian cinema and media. Corporate Indian cinema has finally arrived with big names like UTV, Saimira Pyramid, Percept, Sony Pictures, Adlabs and the unstoppable Anil Ambani.

However, when I look deeper into the dealings and transactions made in the name of corporate filmmaking, I find it seriously disturbing. Multi-picture contracts smelling like junk bonds are signed with actors and directors for crores and then labelled as films like Tashan and Love Story 2050. Looking at the incredible list of executive producers and consultants on a film called Aamir makes me wonder where they were when the film was being made or released.

And there is the absurd hype about our corporate bosses signing up Steven Spielberg and acquiring 500 cinema screens in the US, hoping that such news will boost a sagging share market. Can’t we more realistic? Many well-minded producers in the corporate fray explain it off by saying that these are pangs of labour pain being experienced by a new system taking birth. But will this new baby look and feel normal?

Last week I was at the IIM-Bangalore, addressing students on the values of independent filmmaking and the prospects for change, which is actually possible if the right kind of people come to the fore in the emerging world of corporate cinema. Looking at the kind of money and returns being projected today, somebody like me seems like a dinosaur working with a maximum budget for a feature film in 2000 at Rs 40 lakh.

At the cost of sounding like a blistering oracle I would like to reassert that the greatest talent of the Indian film fraternity was to prove to Hollywood that we could keep them at bay not only because of our unusual forms of melodrama but also because of our amazing ingenuity in using top-of-the-line capital intensive equipment to produce films at amazingly below-the-line budgets.

For this to happen independent filmmaking requires to prioritise the film first and the deal later. We seem to be aping the business angle of Hollywood by concentrating on the deal-making logistics more than on the film. We have to remember that cinema is unlike other industrial products where consumption is based on a blend of need-based survival and want-based aspiration. Cinema as a cultural product is totally dependent on the audience’s requirement for media as a negotiating instrument to seek upward social mobility. And this requirement is completely unpredictable, however much the filmmaker could claim that he or she knows the pulse of the audience.

My appeal to all MBAs who head corporate film houses is to keep an ear to the ground and trust the native intelligence of the independent-minded filmmaker to come up with the right approach to reach the audience. While instilling production discipline is important to induce a modicum of professionalism, it should not be at the cost of that crucial element called risk-taking-talent.

This is something which only creative artistes can master. Cinema is not about deal-making. It is about telling stories. If we don’t care, we will drive ourselves to cinematic bankruptcy like our Hollywood corporate honchos who continue to bankroll more of Die Hard, Superman, Shrek and Narnia. Are we getting ready for more remakes of Sarkar Raj, Don and Karz?

Let’s ask ourselves one simple question. Do we truly believe that the best days of Indian cinema were those which produced 40 films starring Rajesh Khanna between 1966 and 1974; and that between the years 1960 and 1970 we saw 100 films starring Sivaji Ganesan, 128 starring N.T. Rama Rao and 145 films starring Prem Nazir?

For a population so large, I think the primary responsibility of cinema’s cultural artisans is to keep up the sheer production of their art works for public display. It should be left to the rasika to choose freely from among such a huge number. These are simple kitchen truths which our grandmothers will vouch for.

Today, as a true rasika, even after discounting the presence of so many TV channels, I get to see a Aamir Khan film every three years; a Rajini or Kamalhasan film every two years; a Hrithik Roshan film every two years. By the time I get to see our up-and-coming Arya in Bala’s Naan Kadavul, I will be close to God myself to see if it is true or not. My father and my guru once told me, "When we make more movies, money will follow. But when we want to make more money, movies do not follow."

The writer is a film and documentary maker and director of L.V. Prasad Academy. He has made seven features including award winners like Ghashi-ram Kotwal in Marathi and Current starring Om Puri and Deepti Naval.

Animation wins big

Asian — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:53:42 GMT

Pramita Bose

Laadli, an animation film by the Kolkata-based Metaphor Studios, has won the United Nations Fund for Population Activities award for most insightful depiction of female infanticide.

"It was as if good had triumphed over evil," said Shankar, animation expert and studio head. The studio has previously done work on socially relevant themes. "So we knew the basic nitty-gritty," said Shankar. Still, "it posed a challenge as an offbeat endeavour."

Shankar and his team of 15 animators completed the project in a little over 20 days.

"We just sat down, chalked out the basic areas, laid down the storyboarding and made a quick assessment of the work-profile. The entire film was conceptualised and prepared barely within three weeks," Shankar said. The inspiration came from UNFPA’s banner.

The message of the three-minute film isn’t aimed merely at the rural audiences but cuts across all demographies.

"The irony is that foeticide exists in the first world nations too and in high-society metropolitan cities too," said Shankar.

"Families from all walks of life resort to female foeticide, irrespective of their cultural and educational backgrounds or the post-modern contemporary age that we live in. There has been irreverent misuse of technology. It’s justified to detect a child’s disability before birth through ultrasonography but not his sex," said Ranjini Mukherjee, COO, Metaphor.

UNFPA has posted Laadli on the Internet and is available for easy download.

"We never intended to make a patronising film nor did we want to sound didactic or preachy by cramming too many facts and figures into the storyline. Barring a man’s audible voice and an ambience music played at the backdrop in few portions, the film rests on visual appeal minus any dialogues. We didn’t want to wipe out the fun element from the film. The essence of enjoyment is very much retained in the plot for family viewing," she says.

"As a cinematic medium, I guess, animation serves up a visual treat to the eyes. It also doubles up as a potent communication material. Incidentally, this UNFPA sponsored project is meant to be an ideal tool for campaigning against this mass malaise. Within its given parameters, an animation despite being a cost-effective medium enables certain things to be acceptable and convincing which otherwise wouldn’t be viable on screen. And finally, we also conveyed a message in a limited time. Incidentally, while designing the character and location, we were careful about not portraying a biased view of a specific geographical site. Since it was a national level competition, so we kept it at a pan-Indian level," Mukherjee said.

Armed with a commendable repertoire of films on issues like paedophiles and child subjugation in Goa in partnership with a Mumbai-based NGO, child labour, AIDS, cleanliness, water and hygiene, this leading animation studio plans to showcase its short-length mini movies.

"We are equipped with animation skills but not with content. By screening these productions in the related sectors, we can actually obtain necessary inputs from specialised workers plus associates and together join hands to mobilise our efforts and merge our skills to make the animated output more meaningful in the long run," Mukherjee said.

Incidentally, Metaphor Studios had also bagged an award for technical excellence in 2006 from Seagates.

Having notched up a nomination in the short film category, Metaphor Studios clinched the top honours as the champion of national creative excellence awards for social change, 2008. This apart, there were categories for story boards of TVCs/films/animation films. Laadli was essentially created with the objective of generating awareness through the involvement of social workers supporting the cause and creating social consciousness on the issue, collectively. The key denominator was the need for quality material against sex selection.

Let’s get reel

Asian — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:08:51 GMT

Nawaid Anjum

Osian’s-Cinefan is all set to stir it up, again. Come July 10 and the spotlight shifts on cinema and it’s showtime for the cinebuffs. The tenth chapter of Osian’s-Cinefan: Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema, to be held at the Siri Fort auditorium and Alliance Française in New Delhi, will put on the celluloid’s platter over 150 films as well as some short fiction films which are part of the new attractions.

The fest celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. When it started its journey way back in 1999, it was a tour down cinematic lane which was only set to grow as the Indian audience lapped up the kind of cinema shown at the fest.

Latika Padgaonkar, joint festival director, who accompanied Aruna Vasudev (editor of the Asian film quarterly Cinemaya and the brain behind the annual fest) on this journey, recalls: "When we started, we had just 30 films as part of the fest. Though it’s a small figure, it seemed to us really huge. Now ,when we think about it, it seems nothing compared to what we are doing at the moment."

Latika adds that it was "wonderful" having a lady with a vision like Aruna with her knowledge of cinema, especially Asian cinema. "It’s because of her that we were able to present the festival every year," says Latika.

Initially, the fest was faced with the financial concerns. "It was a question of money. We got constant support from the Delhi Government and Tata Tea. And the fest was presented by NETPAC (Netwrok for the Promotion of Cinema)," informs Indu Shrikent, the joint festival director.

When Cinefan tied up with the Osian’s, the scale of the festival changed. Osian’s vision of a great cinematic culture and its infrastructural base in the country, as spelt out by its chairman, Neville Tuli, came into play. And the beginning was made in that direction with making the festival "independent", completely free of sponsorships.

Osian’s Film House, formed in the wake of the former’s acquisition of Cinefan and Cinemaya in 2004, set some exciting targets for itself.

And, every year, it is setting out to achieve those targets which range from a meeting of minds, building infrastructure for art and culture to film financing and production.

"It’s a power struggle," Neville draws the battleline, speaking in the context of Hollywood films vs. the Asian and Arab movies. And it’s a struggle that will continue till "the Hollywood monopoly Hollywood is broken".

The festival, along with the annual award for writing, will bestow Osian’s lifetime achievement award for contribution to cinema, on Mrinal Sen. The writer’s award has been renamed the Aruna Vasudev lifetime achievement award for writing on cinema and will be conferred on Jose ‘Pete’ F. Lacaba from the Philippines.

Osian’s-Cinefan has also announced over Rs 1 crore in prize money for its competition sections and lifetime achievement awards. The winners of the lifetime achievement awards will be presented Rs 800,000 each.

The festival also introduces a new section called "In-Tolerance". Informs Latika, "In the section ‘In-Tolerance,’ we focus on the new films that deal with violence in the society. Intolerance is taking newer and harsher forms. And filmmakers are responding to it in features and documentaries."

In its section "Ten Commandments (World Cinema)", to mark its 10 years, the fest will "celebrate the significance of the number 10". The films explore "the manner in which cinema has navigated the narrow alley between censorship, transgression and pleasure throughout its history."

One of the highlights of the fest will be the unveiling of the scale model of the Osianama, Osian’s flagship cultural complex in Mumbai to be opened in mid-2009, which will house two screens and a a large debating house for discussions on cinema.

The fest, which pays tribute to the Egyptian novelist Najib Mahfouz with four films — two from Egypt and two from Mexico — will, of course, have its regular constituent of Arab cinema.

As for the fest, it only shows us the diverse complexities of cultures expressed through the medium of cinema. And in doing so, it is also engaging the best of minds from the world of cinema. Osian’s-Cinefan is becoming bigger and better every year. And that spells good news for the movie buffs.

Creativity finds freedom

Asian — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:07:53 GMT

Sudeshna Ghosh

Independence" is in many ways the Holy Grail in the film business — something that every filmmaker strives for but can never quite attain.

To be independent in the film business denotes a freedom from something, whether the vicissitudes of the commercial market or the matrix of companies that dominate the production and distribution of motion pictures. Huntz Hall (1919–1999), an actor famous for his appearances in the Bowery Boy B movies of the 1940s, once mused that you can recognise an independent film with a simple test: If the whole set shakes when someone slams a door it’s an independent film. Though reductive and true for only the least ambitious of independent pictures, Hall’s quip hints at the larger budgetary concerns of the vast majority of independent films.

There is a mantra shared by independent directors: "Talk is cheap; action is expensive." When budget considerations loom over a production, it is always cheaper to film two people talking in a room than a car chase or a UFO landing.

Today, due to the large volume of inexpensive, high-end digital film equipment available at the consumer level, independent filmmakers are no longer dependent on major studios to provide them with the tools they need to produce a film. Post production has also been simplified by non-linear editing software available for home computers. Co-financing has become a growing trend in modern day Hollywood, with over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 being funded as joint ventures, up from 10 per cent in 1987.

The increasing popularity and feasibility of low-budget films over the last 15 years has led to a vast increase in the number of aspiring filmmakers — people who have written spec-scripts and who hope to find several million dollars to turn that script into an independent film sensation like Reservoir Dogs, Little Miss Sunshine or Juno. These aspiring filmmakers often work day-jobs while they pitch their scripts to independent film production companies, talent agents, and wealthy investors. Independent movie-making has also resulted in the proliferation and re-popularisation of short films and short film festivals. Full-length films are often showcased at film festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival and the Slamdance Film Festival. Although the concept of independent films is not new to India, the trend is catching up vehemently in the last couple of years. With emergence of a new breed of filmmakers with small-budget films like Bheja Fry, Mixed Doubles, Khosla ka Ghosla, Indian films are breathing afresh.