Taking the bus….

I often travel by bus out of Goa. Flying is a necessary evil, at best, avoidable, even if somebody else is picking up the bill (as is often the case while on work). With all this global warming around us, can we justify needless carbon footprints?

So, coming back to the topic of the bus… I wonder how you guys rate the varied bus services that connect Goa.

For long, I used to be a Paulo fan. They’re people-like-us… if you know what I mean. Wink, wink. One of the few enterprising Goan cristaos into business, and doing well with it (despite sometimes being on the wrong side politically, such as their dad Teotonio Pereira supporting the losing Wilfred de Souza Goa Congress bandwaggon when he was a legislator, and their determined high-profile battles over sleeper coaches during the Parrikar regime).

One of the Pereira boys (Magno) was in school with us, and we were all envious that he even had a bus named after him. All the children of the Paulo Travels family at one stage had buses named after them… that was before the fleet outstripped the number of children, I guess 🙂

Apart from these factors, I frankly liked their inexpensive operations, and their sleeper service. It allowed me to sleep soundly and reach Bangalore or Bombay next morning fresh, without the hassles of struggling to book a train ticket (which provided the same, for less, but has traditionally been such a struggle to book! Train tickets are now easier to come by, if you have a credit card and can crack the computerised booking system that is.)

But things changed, as the Paulo Travels trips started getting longer and reaching their destination later. If attending an early morning seminar, as is often my situation, one can’t saunter into the venue at noon day, wondering what all one has missed. They offer discounts on their tickets, but is fifty rupees worth the many extra hours wasted on the roads? To be fair to them, Paulo’s breakdowns (and that of other buses) are less frequent than they were a decade-and-half ago when India was still struggling even more badly to get its road transport into place. (India still is, but parts of the country are doing better than others… the south is particularly noteworthy.)

One option was Sharma, a “non Goan” travel service, run far more professionally and efficiently.

If I’m headed to Karnataka, I even occasionally take the KSRTC (Karnataka state service). They have a wide range of buses, including their comfy Volvos. Whatever chauvinism we might have against “non Goans”, fact is they are quietly efficient in running their service. Twenty minutes dinner break means just that — 20 minutes! Not stretchable to 40 minutes, as in the case of our “Goan” bus services. They reach on time, and come packaged in the typically South Indian high politeness levels, which is just the right note on which you want to start a trip somewhere.

Today, while aimlessly leafing through a guide book, I came across an advert for the Raj Travels Goa-Mumbai service (is it really linked to some politicians, as rumoured?) What they offer sounds very interesting, though I must admit that the tickets are priced far higher than the others….

Check out what they’re offering… and please do share your experiences in bus travel to and from Goa. (I’m not pushing for one or the other service, but would really like to know if there are options that we could learn from)…

Raj National Express  Volvo coach: Facilities include — Point-to-point service. Absolutely punctual services. 41 seats instead of 53, so more leg space for you. Seat reclines to maximu. Two LCD TV/DVD instead of one. Uniformed coach captain. Headphones on every seat. Mobile and laptop charging facility. Closed cabins for your handbaggage, just like an aircraft. http://www.rajnationalexpress.in

The uniformed captains bit doesn’t excite me, but the headphones do (the screaming video shows on most other buses are a pain… so I guess that would be absent). And the possibility of using a laptop while travelling also sounds interesting.

Of course, the tickets ARE on the higher side, compared to other services. Send in your views please…

Blogged with Flock

Tags: bus, goa, transport

Bollywood’s posters of yesteryears, broad brushstrokes now vanishing

FN

PANAJI (Goa), Nov 26: They once fired the Indian imagination, and built dreams for the millions. Today, the posters that built Bollywood are being displaced by technology and the changing needs of the time.

Bollywood’s posters have long been handpainted. But technology is making that a dying-art.

With a backdrop of IFFI, the 38th edition of the International Film Festival of India currently underway here, tributes were paid to this fast vanishing world of poster art.

‘Poster Boys’ is the title of a workshop and exhibition being conducted by poster artists from Mumbai. They promise to show visitors to it “the skills and technique that was used to paint old billboards”.

“We called it Friday-to-Friday art,” says Guruji Vinod, himself a prominent practitioner of this art based in Mumbai’s Dadar locality. Vinod was speaking while taking part in the inauguration of this event in Goa on the weekend. Each Friday, he recalled, old posters were changed for new ones.

He paid tribute to poster-artists, as they went about doing their thick-brushed paint strokes on canvas with what seemed like deceptive ease. “Deepak could paint as many as three posters in a day,” he said, pointing to one veteran who worked and trained under him.

Guruji Vinod joked that the posters, after use, would go into propping up shanti-town houses and roadside homes, and thus played a role in serving the commonman too.

“We painted the town not just red, but blue and pink and violet and all the shades and colours in between,” he said, half jokingly, while noting how the art was fading away.

Bollywood posters have been the most commonly seen ones in India.

“Besides the huge billboards that grace the skyline of Bombay, Madras and other big cities in India, you will find that every inch of public wall space is also taken up with gaudy pictures of Bollywood stars and starlets, making for very colorful city streets,” comments a blog by ‘Lotus Reads’ who identifies herself as a female blogger based in Ontario.

Together with the Bollywood Poster Revival Workshop, Ruchika’s first exhibition, going on simultaneously, is ‘Goan Strokes’ features works by renowned artists from Goa such as Mohan Naik, Rajeshree Thakkar, Nirupa Naik and Rajesh Salgaonkar, whose work has been inspired by cinema.

There’s also another simultaneous one titled ‘Fotographik Fawzan’ exhibition displays the works by phtographer Fawzan Hussain. His photographs showcase behind-the-scenes reality on on Bollywood sets, and runs from November 25 to 30.

What sees in the photos of Fawzan are the scenes that go into making the dream-sequences of Bollywood — starlets being doused with bottles of water to create special effects, major heroes in frank off-screen moments, and scenes which the cinema audiences otherwise won’t even suspect goes into the building of the sequences of the dream-merchants.

Being held at the Ruchika’s Art Gallery, a plush and spacious art gallery, the Bollywood poster revival workshop will be followed by an exhibition of poster works called ‘Poster Boys’ produced at this workshop.

Relatively new, the Ruchika’s Art Gallery boasts of over 10,000 square feet of space, with multiple display areas and artist studios for individual and group shows.

Ruchika’s has also promised educational programs which include knowledge- and skill-based courses, designed and taught by professional artists.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

INDIA OPTS FOR REGIONAL CINEMA TO REPRESENT IT AT IFFI 2007

 

FN

PANAJI, Goa, Nov 24: An India fast gaining on technical skills, but still struggling to get the rest of the globe to take note of its regional cinema has chosen Malayalam and Bengali films to represent the country at IFFI-2007 current underway here.

Two regional-language films from the south-west state of Kerala, and the eastern state of West Bengal will be the official entries at the Asian, African and Latin American Competition of the 38th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) that got underway here on Friday.

Lenin Rajendran’s “Night Rain” (Rathri Mazha) is about two youngsters — Harikrishnan and Meera — who come to know each other through a matrimonial advertisement on a website.

Through intermittent chat sessions they get drawn to each other. Though they have not met, love blossoms. But what they love is what each imagines the other person to be.

When they eventually meet, their dreams are shattered. But their minds have been so bonded together that they decide to marry and make the best of it. It is now society that looks askance at their relationship.

Director Lenin Rajendra is an active member of the Communist Party, in a province of India (Kerala) that has intermittently elected the Marxists to rule their region through the ballot box.

Reflecting his politics, his other films have dealt with an anti-feudal upheaval in the Kerala of the 1940s (“Meenamasithile Sooryan”, 1985), a period film about a 19th century king (“Swathi Thirunal”, 1987), an adaptation of a novel (“Vikrithikal”, 1992), on the religious divide growing in the region (“Annyar”, 2003), among others.

India’s other entry is “Tale of a River” (Ek Nadir Galpo), in the Bengali language which is spoken in India as also in parts of neighbouring Bangladesh. It is by Samir Chanda.

“Tale of a River” celebrates the special relationship that fathers and daughters share. Darakeshwar is Anu’s hero and she is her father’s pride and joy. The body between the two transcends time and even death.

Darakeshwar’s mission is to rename a river in memory of his daughter, who is lost in the river.

In a diverse country that has to cope with a Babel of languages, the IFFI manages to draw together quite some amount of regional films. Subtitling these films in English, specially done for the IFFI, helps to widen their appeal beyond the language they were first produced in.

INDIAN PANORAMA: Other Indian films selected include “Ore Kadal” (Malayalam), directed by Shyamaprasad, which will open the Indian Panorama feature film section, while “Bagher Bacha” (Bengali) directed by Bishnu Dev Halder will open the non-feature section of the Indian Panorama section that showcases made-in-India cinema and promises a “360 degree view of Indian cinema”.

These selections were made out of 119 feature and 149 non feature films from across India.

Selecting India’s entries for the event were feature film jury members Ms. Manju Borah, film maker from Guwahati; Leslie Carvalho, film maker from Bangalore; Abhijeet Dasgupta, film maker from Kolkata; Dr. Mrunalinni Patil Dayal, film maker from Mumbai and Ms. Shubhra Gupta, film critic from Delhi.

NON-FEATURE FILMS: The non feature film jury comprised of Delhi filmmaker Pankaj Butalia; Mumbai film-maker Ms. Kavita Chaudhary, and Guwahati film-maker Gautam Saikia.

In this vast land of big numers, some 21 feature films and 15 non-feature films have been selected for the 38th edition of the International Film Festival of India, held annually in November-December and shifted from New Delhi to Goa since 2004.

The non-feature films focus on a range of themes, from the horrors and adventure in the life of a ten-year-old child living in a railway station in Kolkata (“Bagher Bacha”, or “The Tiger’s Club”), to a return to an ancestral village after decades (“Harvilele Indradhansh” or “Teh Lost Rainbow”), and the Egnlish-language 80-minut estory of Indian soldiers still languishing as prisoners of war in Pakistan (“Hope Dies Last In War”).

“Joy Ride” (10 minutes, Hindi) is one of the entries, as is another film on the journey of a great Bollywood film music director of the yesteryears, Dattaram (“Masti Bhara Hai Sama”, Hindi, 80 minutes).

Another film is on famed South Indian writer M.T.Vasudevan Nair (“M.Tyude Kumaranellurile Kulangal” or “MT’s Ponds of Kumaranellor”). “Mubarak Begum” (Hindi, 19 minutes) focuses on the life of the top playback singer of the same name, while another film is a biography of legendary music composer Naushad Ali.

“Ngaihak Lambida” (“Along The Way”) is a film coming from the small North East Indian language of Manipuri.

This film is about a 35-year-old woman, the second-wife of a contractor, whose son gets hospitalised, leading her to get attracted to a stranger — over whom she makes a choice for herself.

“Nokpokliba” (English, 10 minutes) is based on a folk-talk from Nagaland, again from north-eastern India. It is a story about a magician who brings justice to his people through his magic.

Another film on an artiste is “Pandit Ramnarayan — Sarangi Ke Sang”. This biographical film (Hindi, 50 minutes) portrays the evolution of Pandit Ramnarayan as one of the finest musicians. Ramnarayan is to Sarangi (the bow-stringed instrument of South Asia) what Mozart was to piano.

“Poomaram” (“The Flowering Tree”, Malayalam) is about menstruation, males, menstrual rites and the development of agriculture, mathematics, writing, calendars and other realms of knowledge.

“Rajarshee Bhagyachandra of Manipur” (English, 58 minutes) is about a great king of the past, a cultural architect whose artistic creations brought a social-cultural revolution to his people.

“The Dance of The Enchantress” (Malayalam) is about Indian dance, and produced-directed by prominent South Indian film-maker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, who has scripted and directed ten feature films and more than two dozen shorts and documentaries.

“Whose Land Is It Anyway” (English, 40 minutes) is a film about an ongoing peasant movement in Singur village, to save a thousand acres of their farm-land from beign acquired by the West Bengal government for a car manufacturing factory by an Indian industrial giant, the Tatas.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

38th IFFI TAKES OFF AT INDIA’S WEST COAST AT GOA TODAY

FN

Panaji (Goa), Nov 23: The 38th International Film Festival of India (IFFI-07) takes off later today in India’s smallest state, on the west coast of India. Mainstream Indian Bollywood film actor Shahrukh Khan will be the chief guest, scheduled for Friday evening (India is five-and-half hours behind UTC).

The inaugural lamp — a traditional mark of inaugurations done in India — will be lit with the assistance of Priyamani, a rising star of southern cinema.  Inaugural function will be attended by Indian federal Minister of Information & Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs, P. R. Dasmunsi and Chief Minister of Goa Digambar Kamat besides several important film personalities.

Media commentators, including the NDTV mainstream television channel, commented that this year’s festival was focussing less Indian commercial (“Bollywood”) cinema, and instead looking to regional films and outputs from across the globe.

The Palme D’Or winner of Cannes 2007, ‘Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days’ is to be the opening film.  Director of the opening film Cristian Mungiu and the main actress, Anamaria Marinca are to be present at the inaugural ceremony.

Besides, there would be other foreign delegates representing various international film festivals from Netherlands, China, Poland and Mexico. A major delegation from Poland and China will also be present.  Portugal-Spain film ‘Fados’ directed by Carlos Saura will be the closing film for the Festival.

The Cinema of the World Section will feature a choice of year’s international cinema.  This section will have 76 films from 42 countries.

A specialized competition for feature films by Asian, African and Latin American directors is being organized. Under this section, fourteen films from 13 countries have been selected for the competition. Specially after shifting to Goa, IFFI has been attempting to build itself up as a place for films from Asia-Africa-Latin America.

The competition jury is headed by the eminent award winning film maker from Hungary Ms Marta Mazaros, who has won awards in Cannes, Berlin, Venice and San Sebastian festivals.

Other members of the jury are actress Meltem Cumbul (Turkey); cinematographer Shaji N Karun, film director and script writer from Kerala in South India; noted Argentinian film director Pablo Cesar and Robert Sarkies, film maker from New Zealand.

Hungary will be in focus under the section ‘Country Focus’.

Seven films come from this part of the world: “Black Brush’ (Director: Roland Vranik), ‘Dealer’ (Director: Benedek Fliegauf), ‘Eastern Sugar’ (Director: Ferenc Torok), ‘Hukkle’ (Director: Gyorgy Palfi), ‘Temptations’ (Director: Zoltan Kamondi), ‘The Porcelain Doll’ (Director: Peter Gardos) and ‘Vagabond’ (Director: Gyorgy Szomjas).

In ‘Film India Worldwide’ category, three films ‘AIDS Jaago’ (Mira Nair), ‘Amal’ (Richie Mehta) and ‘The Pool’ (Chris Smith). Retrospective of Ingmar Bergman would feature seven of his highly acclaimed films, namely, ‘Autumn Sonata’, ‘Fanny and Alexander’, ‘The Seventh Seal’, ‘The Virgin Spring’, ‘Through a Glass Darkly’, ‘Shame’, and ‘Wild Strawberries’.

Indian Panorama at IFFI-2007 would present a bouquet of 36 films, comprising 21 features and 15 non-feature films. The package is a mixed bag with prominent Indian stalwarts like Budhadeb Dasgupta and Adoor Gopalakrishnan presenting two films each.

The section would have Ami Iyasin Aar Amaar Madhubala (The Voyeurs- Feature) and Naushad Ali- the Melody continues (Non Feature) by Budhadeb Dasgupta and Naalu Penunungal (Four Women- Feature) and The Dance of the Enchantress (Non Feature) by Adoor Gopalakrishnan.

The debut directors like Sameer Hanchante, Samir Chanda, and Bhavna Talwar would present their films Gafla (Scam), Ek Nadir Galpo (Tale Of A River), and Dharm respectively at the festival.

A special section celebrating 60 years of India’s independence, India @ 60, would showcase seven patriotic films including three feature and four documentaries.

IFFI also features a Film Bazaar for films from India as well as large number of foreign countries, seminars, discussions and press conferences, IFFI Goa film treasures (a section dedicated to international film heritage) and special festival publications on the films being screened, organisers of the event said.

Theatre facilities for IFFI – 2007 have been significantly upgraded. Nine theatres with a total seating capacity of 3026 would be part of the Festival complex as compared to five theatres with a total seating capacity of 2200 last year.

The theatres are, Inox Multiplex (4 screens), Kala Academy (2 screens), Ashok & Samrat (2 screens).  Two new screens have been added in Maquinez Palace, which have the capacity to be looped.  Over 3500 delegates have registered.  Around 350 media persons have registered of which 80 are from Goa, according to the Press Information Bureau, the state-run official information network here.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

Bollywood’s posters of yesteryears, broad brushstrokes now vanishing

FN

PANAJI (Goa), Nov 26: They once fired the Indian imagination, and built dreams for the millions. Today, the posters that built Bollywood are being displaced by technology and the changing needs of the time.

Bollywood’s posters have long been handpainted. But technology is making that a dying-art.

With a backdrop of IFFI, the 38th edition of the International Film Festival of India currently underway here, tributes were paid to this fast vanishing world of poster art.

‘Poster Boys’ is the title of a workshop and exhibition being conducted by poster artists from Mumbai. They promise to show visitors to it “the skills and technique that was used to paint old billboards”.

“We called it Friday-to-Friday art,” says Guruji Vinod, himself a prominent practitioner of this art based in Mumbai’s Dadar locality. Vinod was speaking while taking part in the inauguration of this event in Goa on the weekend. Each Friday, he recalled, old posters were changed for new ones.

He paid tribute to poster-artists, as they went about doing their thick-brushed paint strokes on canvas with what seemed like deceptive ease. “Deepak could paint as many as three posters in a day,” he said, pointing to one veteran who worked and trained under him.

Guruji Vinod joked that the posters, after use, would go into propping up shanti-town houses and roadside homes, and thus played a role in serving the commonman too.

“We painted the town not just red, but blue and pink and violet and all the shades and colours in between,” he said, half jokingly, while noting how the art was fading away.

Bollywood posters have been the most commonly seen ones in India.

“Besides the huge billboards that grace the skyline of Bombay, Madras and other big cities in India, you will find that every inch of public wall space is also taken up with gaudy pictures of Bollywood stars and starlets, making for very colorful city streets,” comments a blog by ‘Lotus Reads’ who identifies herself as a female blogger based in Ontario.

Together with the Bollywood Poster Revival Workshop, Ruchika’s first exhibition, going on simultaneously, is ‘Goan Strokes’ features works by renowned artists from Goa such as Mohan Naik, Rajeshree Thakkar, Nirupa Naik and Rajesh Salgaonkar, whose work has been inspired by cinema.

There’s also another simultaneous one titled ‘Fotographik Fawzan’ exhibition displays the works by phtographer Fawzan Hussain. His photographs showcase behind-the-scenes reality on on Bollywood sets, and runs from November 25 to 30.

What sees in the photos of Fawzan are the scenes that go into making the dream-sequences of Bollywood — starlets being doused with bottles of water to create special effects, major heroes in frank off-screen moments, and scenes which the cinema audiences otherwise won’t even suspect goes into the building of the sequences of the dream-merchants.

Being held at the Ruchika’s Art Gallery, a plush and spacious art gallery, the Bollywood poster revival workshop will be followed by an exhibition of poster works called ‘Poster Boys’ produced at this workshop.

Relatively new, the Ruchika’s Art Gallery boasts of over 10,000 square feet of space, with multiple display areas and artist studios for individual and group shows.

Ruchika’s has also promised educational programs which include knowledge- and skill-based courses, designed and taught by professional artists.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

INDIA OPTS FOR REGIONAL CINEMA TO REPRESENT IT AT IFFI 2007

FN

PANAJI, Goa, Nov 24: An India fast gaining on technical skills, but still struggling to get the rest of the globe to take note of its regional cinema has chosen Malayalam and Bengali films to represent the country at IFFI-2007 current underway here.

Two regional-language films from the south-west state of Kerala, and the eastern state of West Bengal will be the official entries at the Asian, African and Latin American Competition of the 38th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) that got underway here on Friday.

Lenin Rajendran’s “Night Rain” (Rathri Mazha) is about two youngsters — Harikrishnan and Meera — who come to know each other through a matrimonial advertisement on a website.

Through intermittent chat sessions they get drawn to each other. Though they have not met, love blossoms. But what they love is what each imagines the other person to be.

When they eventually meet, their dreams are shattered. But their minds have been so bonded together that they decide to marry and make the best of it. It is now society that looks askance at their relationship.

Director Lenin Rajendra is an active member of the Communist Party, in a province of India (Kerala) that has intermittently elected the Marxists to rule their region through the ballot box.

Reflecting his politics, his other films have dealt with an anti-feudal upheaval in the Kerala of the 1940s (“Meenamasithile Sooryan”, 1985), a period film about a 19th century king (“Swathi Thirunal”, 1987), an adaptation of a novel (“Vikrithikal”, 1992), on the religious divide growing in the region (“Annyar”, 2003), among others.

India’s other entry is “Tale of a River” (Ek Nadir Galpo), in the Bengali language which is spoken in India as also in parts of neighbouring Bangladesh. It is by Samir Chanda.

“Tale of a River” celebrates the special relationship that fathers and daughters share. Darakeshwar is Anu’s hero and she is her father’s pride and joy. The body between the two transcends time and even death.

Darakeshwar’s mission is to rename a river in memory of his daughter, who is lost in the river.

In a diverse country that has to cope with a Babel of languages, the IFFI manages to draw together quite some amount of regional films. Subtitling these films in English, specially done for the IFFI, helps to widen their appeal beyond the language they were first produced in.

INDIAN PANORAMA: Other Indian films selected include “Ore Kadal” (Malayalam), directed by Shyamaprasad, which will open the Indian Panorama feature film section, while “Bagher Bacha” (Bengali) directed by Bishnu Dev Halder will open the non-feature section of the Indian Panorama section that showcases made-in-India cinema and promises a “360 degree view of Indian cinema”.

These selections were made out of 119 feature and 149 non feature films from across India.

Selecting India’s entries for the event were feature film jury members Ms. Manju Borah, film maker from Guwahati; Leslie Carvalho, film maker from Bangalore; Abhijeet Dasgupta, film maker from Kolkata; Dr. Mrunalinni Patil Dayal, film maker from Mumbai and Ms. Shubhra Gupta, film critic from Delhi.

NON-FEATURE FILMS: The non feature film jury comprised of Delhi filmmaker Pankaj Butalia; Mumbai film-maker Ms. Kavita Chaudhary, and Guwahati film-maker Gautam Saikia.

In this vast land of big numers, some 21 feature films and 15 non-feature films have been selected for the 38th edition of the International Film Festival of India, held annually in November-December and shifted from New Delhi to Goa since 2004.

The non-feature films focus on a range of themes, from the horrors and adventure in the life of a ten-year-old child living in a railway station in Kolkata (“Bagher Bacha”, or “The Tiger’s Club”), to a return to an ancestral village after decades (“Harvilele Indradhansh” or “Teh Lost Rainbow”), and the Egnlish-language 80-minut estory of Indian soldiers still languishing as prisoners of war in Pakistan (“Hope Dies Last In War”).

“Joy Ride” (10 minutes, Hindi) is one of the entries, as is another film on the journey of a great Bollywood film music director of the yesteryears, Dattaram (“Masti Bhara Hai Sama”, Hindi, 80 minutes).

Another film is on famed South Indian writer M.T.Vasudevan Nair (“M.Tyude Kumaranellurile Kulangal” or “MT’s Ponds of Kumaranellor”). “Mubarak Begum” (Hindi, 19 minutes) focuses on the life of the top playback singer of the same name, while another film is a biography of legendary music composer Naushad Ali.

“Ngaihak Lambida” (“Along The Way”) is a film coming from the small North East Indian language of Manipuri.

This film is about a 35-year-old woman, the second-wife of a contractor, whose son gets hospitalised, leading her to get attracted to a stranger — over whom she makes a choice for herself.

“Nokpokliba” (English, 10 minutes) is based on a folk-talk from Nagaland, again from north-eastern India. It is a story about a magician who brings justice to his people through his magic.

Another film on an artiste is “Pandit Ramnarayan — Sarangi Ke Sang”. This biographical film (Hindi, 50 minutes) portrays the evolution of Pandit Ramnarayan as one of the finest musicians. Ramnarayan is to Sarangi (the bow-stringed instrument of South Asia) what Mozart was to piano.

“Poomaram” (“The Flowering Tree”, Malayalam) is about menstruation, males, menstrual rites and the development of agriculture, mathematics, writing, calendars and other realms of knowledge.

“Rajarshee Bhagyachandra of Manipur” (English, 58 minutes) is about a great king of the past, a cultural architect whose artistic creations brought a social-cultural revolution to his people.

“The Dance of The Enchantress” (Malayalam) is about Indian dance, and produced-directed by prominent South Indian film-maker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, who has scripted and directed ten feature films and more than two dozen shorts and documentaries.

“Whose Land Is It Anyway” (English, 40 minutes) is a film about an ongoing peasant movement in Singur village, to save a thousand acres of their farm-land from beign acquired by the West Bengal government for a car manufacturing factory by an Indian industrial giant, the Tatas.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

Indian creative energy hits festival screens across the globe

Panaji (Goa), Nov 26: Indian film is bursting forth on screens far and wide, as film-makers take advantage of a more globalised world, a spurt in the visibility of local talent, and the possibilities this throws up.

“The diversity, creative insights and technical virtuosity of Indian cinema are a pageant on world screens in the fall and winter seasons of 2007,” says the latest issue of the ‘FilmIndia Worldwide’.

The magazine has listed a range of Indian films taking part in global festivals during these months.

From the IFFI at Goa, to the Fourth Dubai International Film Festival (Dec 9-16), and the Florence Indian Film Festival ‘River to River’ (Dec 7-17), a range of Indian films are going to discerning audiences at these festivals.

As expected, the 38th International Film Festival of India at Goa (Nov 23-Dec 3) has the maximum of Indian films — 19 feature films; two in the ‘Asian, Africa, Latin America Competition’; 15 in the shorts/docs category; three in the Film India Worldwide segment of expat-crafted films.

Dubai has space for eight Indian films — Mira Nair’s AIDS JaaGO, Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Naalu Pennungal, Santosh Silvan’s Before the Rains, Remo D’Souza’s Lal Paharer Katha, Shivajee Chandrabhushan’s Frozen, Jagmohan Mundhra’s Shoot on Sight, Manish Acharya’s Lions of Punjab Presents, Akbar Khan’s The Taj Mahal, An Eternal Love Story.

Florence takes in Indian films in many categories — feature, documentaries, shorts, animation.

Indian films also make it to the 12th International Film Festival of Kerala (Dec 7 to 14), the 31st Cairo International Film Festival (Nov 27 to Dec 7),

Some of the festivals where Indian work has been recently showcased include the 3rd San Francisco South Asian Film Festival (Nov 16-18), 13th Lyon Asian Film Festival (Nov 6-11), and Third Eye 6th Asian Film Festival (Mumbai, Nov 2-8).

Films from here have also reached Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Kathmandu and other festivals at Sitges (Catalonia, Spain), Pusan (South Korea), New York, Vancouver, Kazan (Tatarstan), and Telluride (Colorado).

Indian film is gaining attention, at least in festivals. The challenge to reach out to wider audiences — beyond just the expat Indian communities — is one which is being continually addressed.

With a wide range of experimental and non-mainstream film being created here, the process is speeding up, thanks to digitisation which allows more small players to enter the field and also makes it easier to distribute films to wider markets or enter them in competitions in festivals worldwide.

‘FilmIndia Worldwide’ editor Uma da Cunha comments: “At year end 2007, Indian cinema has never felt so self-assured, so ready to take on the world, rather like the country’s economy.”

She notes that film festivals are mushrooming in India too — with fests this winter in Kolkata, Kerala, IFFI currently underway in Goa. In 2008, there will be festivals in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Orissa, and Uttar Pradesh.

“Why not, given this nation of over a billion souls?” asks editor Uma da Cunha in the journal.

‘FilmIndia Worldwide’ is a publication of the Confederation of Indian Industry. CII, an lobby for Indian business, has been promoting entertainment and films too among what it calls “creative industries”.

CII argues that “in the future, the ideas and imaginations of a country will prove to be its greatest asset.” It sees the “creative industries” of India as being an integral part of a knowledge-driven economy “capable of fuelling urban growth.”

CII figures for India say that films, ads, music, digital media and other creative copyrighted products account of $ 15 billion worth of production in this country.

“In virtually every creative field, India has a tradition it can be proud of,” argues the CII, suggesting that the country “can now reap the benefits of being an open society that is ready to integrate into the world and find new and profitable applications for ancient strengths.”

It calls for special steps to understand and manage diversity, and allow India the advantage of being a “multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-religious pluralistic heritage that enables it to understand varied markets with ease.”

CII argues that films, literature, music produced here would appeal to an audience in Western as well as South East Asian nations.

“Thus, a Hindi film can find an audience in the affluent Indian Diaspora in the UK and the US, while Tamil films find a niche audience in Malaysia and Singapore and Bengali films have an eager audience in Bangladesh,” says the industry body.

CII is 112 years old, terms itself India’s “premier business association” and has a membership of over 6500 organisations. It has eight offices overseas and 57 in India, and is headquartered in New Delhi’s Lodhi Road area.

CII’s Creative Industries Division says it is keen to help develop industries producing creative content in the field of media, electronic media, advertising, film, digital entertainment and fashion.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

Goa’s IFFI finds a plush home, in what was a state-run hospital

FN

PANAJI Goa Nov 25: Not too long ago, patients hobbled around here, their limbs in plaster and their bodies in bandages. Pregnant mothers-to-be faced labour pains in these rooms. Sick children shed many a tear here. Now, Goa’s IFFI’s dreams are being born in the very same place.

IFFI, the International Film Festival of India’s 38th edition, being held in Goa for the fourth successive year, got off to a colourful start on Friday. It’s venue is on a riverside promenade on the western side of Goa’s state capital Panaji, which makes for dramatic sunsets each evening.

Most IFFI delegates would not suspect that the plush venue housing the festival was Goa’s prime, if then dilapidated, hospital till just a few years back.

Till a few months before Goa played host to the IFFI first in November 1994, spearheaded then by an enthusiastic BJP chief minister Manohar Parrikar, large parts of the current IFFI-multiplex complex were used as a hospital.

The “Old GMC (Goa Medical College) Complex”, as it is still referred to, was built on the main road along the Mandovi river in 1927.

Former civil servant and conservation enthusiast Percival Noronha notes that the period look of this building is evident from its Roman, Neo-classical and Gothic style, semi-circular arched windows, wooden ceilings, cast iron railings, and ornamental tiles with rose motifs.

It also has long corridors, balustrades, pilasters, mouldings, ornamental grills, occluses, stained glass windows of Gothic style window panes, porches and pillars resembling the Doric Order.

Today, the building has got a costly re-do. To restore two more old buildings — which also house the media centre — the Goa government spent an estimated Rs 14 crore (Rs 140 million) this year itself.

Being restored just prior to this IFFI was a place now called the Maquinez Palace. This complex was built as a countryside resort, away from the then city, by the Portuguese noble family of the Count of Maquinez, on the banks of the Mandovi river.

Entertainment Society of Goa’s press spokesperson Ethel da Costa, a journalist till recently, told IANS that there was a total shortage of historical information about this place.

The Maquinez Palace Complex was first built in 1776-80, and is one of the early structures to have been built in what was to become Nova Goa, the new Portuguese colonial capital after they abandoned the earlier city of Velha Goa (Old Goa), some 10 kms eastwards, due to the unhealthy living conditions there.

The Maquinez Palace was spacious and had a chapel of its own, still visible and sitting incongruously alongside the film festival that celebrates beauty, sex, glamour and politics. Built in 1720, the chapel is devoted to Our Lady of Sorrows.

The palace functioned till Pangim (as the city was then known) grew through the early 1800s. It was taken over by the Portuguese government to house the Escola Medico, one of the early medical schools in South Asia, in 1842.

Later, it came to house the Food and Drug Administration, a government office dominated by dusty files and dour government servants.

Over time, this building came to be in a state of disrepair, and was “devoid of any specific function”, as the Goa government itself concedes in an official press note.

Currently, the 18th century palace has been restored with lightening, sanitary and drainage facilities, and even shivery-cold air-conditioning system.

Goa — with its strange mix of colonial infrastructure, well-funded projects dating back to its days as a Union Territory, cash-strapped post-Statehood days, and occasional lavish spending now — has had some strange locations for its projects.

Its fledging university was houses in an unfinished hospital in the 1980s, while till recently the State Secretariat and legislative assembly was housed in a scenic colonial building on the Mandovi river that once was the palace of the Adil Shah of Bijapur in pre-colonial times, and now awaits being redeployed for some other suitable purpose.

This year IFFI has also been taking its films to other centres, even as it attempts to minimise traffic dislocation within Panjim itself by doing away with needless street-carnivals.

Movies are being shown on the Baina beach — where a squalid red-light district was uprooted during Goa’s BJP rule — and films are being shown in distant places like the mining-dominated town of Bicholim together with cultural programmes in some parts of the state.

More cine theatres have been roped in to screen IFFI films this year, while late-night buses have also been arranged in otherwise public traffic-scarce Goa. Goa’s website for the event is at iffigoa.org

With the uncertainty over whether IFFI will continue in Goa itself — once packaged as the festival’s “permanent venue” — and various lobbies keen to move it to some other siting they see as more convenient, the state government is also stretching to retain its claim to host the event, even if the same comes at not a small price to the state exchequer.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

Films Division in new makeover at IFFI

FN

Panaji, Nov 25: India’s Films Division, a legacy from the days when documentary filmmaking in India was largely government-dominated, has put up a cine expo and is to screen films on the Indian freedom struggle during the IFFI film festival underway here.

Struggling to find a new role for itself, in times when many high-quality filmmakers, specially small-time independent documentary makers, have entered the market, the Films Division has also set up a marketing stall of its products and is taking part in a ‘film bazaar’ that is part of the International Film Festival of India 2007. It has also released a film on Indian cinema.

Films Division is organizing an exclusive exhibition, called ‘Behind The Frames’, during IFFI.

This cine expo will displays different equipment and materials connected with filmmaking, going from decades ago to the latest gadgets.

On display are a 35 mm Mitchell camera, metal blimp camera, 16 mm Bolex camera, Aaton and BL camera, Eclair NPR camera, Arri 435, zoom lenses, digital meters, Uhar recorder, Nagras, digital recorders, 35 mm triple dubbers, and more.

Also competing for space are a Siemens mixing console, still cameras, moviola, sound reader, Steenbeck, 10 K and 5 K lights, sun guns, reflectors, 35 mm and 16 mm projectors, colour and B & W picture and sound positive and negative spools and more.

Apart from these, rare film-related photographs and posters collected from different sources are also being exhibited. The rare equipments on display offer an insight into the technical nuances of film making, and how it changed over the times.

Films on the history of Indian cinema, filmmaking and related subjects are also being screened at the venue. The expo will be held at the Dr. V.J. Pinto Hall, on the ground floor of a restored beautiful colonial building, part of which goes back to the 18th century in Portuguese-ruled Goa, which also served as the main hospital for the region ages ago.

This expo will remain open to delegates and public from Nov 24 to Dec 2.

Films Division’s documentary films on different subjects, especially on art, heritage, music, dance, cinema, Indian personalities, and India’s freedom struggle and the like, have been stocked in VCD format.

A marketing stall will sell the same at the INOX venue of IFFI, along with the chance to preview the films.

Films Division is also participating in the Film Bazaar organized by the Indian National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) at the Marriott, alongside Miramar beach.

“Efforts will be made for exposure of our culture, art and heritage through Films Division documentaries by proactive interaction with producers and delegates from different countries at both the film bazaar and film market stall as well,” an official statement here said.

‘Dreaming Cinema’ an exclusive documentary on the history of Indian cinema after the Independence, is being released on the occasion of the 38th IFFI. This 30-minute film will provide an overview of Indian cinema from 1947 till date, as the theme.

The second issue of ‘Documentary Today’ will be released during the festival. Apart from this, four Films Division films on the freedom movement will be screened in the special section called ‘India at 60’, marking the country’s 60th anniversary as an independent nation.

Four Films Division films have already been selected in the Indian Panorama section this year.

Officials said the Films Division team, handling the all-important Print Unit of the IFFI, has started functioning, for ensuring “zero error screenings” at different venues.

Films Division, run by the government, has been engaged in the production of documentaries and news magazines for publicity of the government’s programmes. Its news magazines and documentaries have long been released to various theatres throughout the country for compulsory exhibition.

Films Division produces documentaries and news magazines from its headquarters at Mumbai, films on defence and family welfare from New Delhi and featurettes with a rural bias from the regional centres at Calcutta and Bangalore.

It also organises an International Film Festivals for Documentary, Short and Animation Films at Mumbai, also known as the MIFF. The next MIFF will be held from Feb 3-9, 2008, details of which are at http://miffindia.in/

Films Division is divided into four wings, viz. Production, Distribution, International Documentary and Short Film Festival. See http://www.filmsdivision.org

Cinema was itself introduced to India fairly early, in 1896. Currently, the Indian film industry is rated the largest in the world in terms of the ticket sales and the number of films produced annually.

Movie tickets in India are among the cheapest in the world. India accounts for 73 percent of movie admissions in the Asia-Pacific region. The industry is mainly supported by the vast cinema-going Indian public.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

FILM EQUIPMENT, FROM DECADES BACK TO THE LATEST, ON SHOW AT GOA

Panaji GOA, Nov 25: India’s Films Division, a legacy from the days when documentary film-making in India was largely government-dominated, has put up a cine expo, released a film on Indian cinema, is to screen films on the Indian freedom struggle during the IFFI film festival underway here.

Struggling to find a new role for itself, in times when many high-quality film-makers — specially small-time independent documentary film-makers have entered the market — the Films Division has also set up a marketing stall of its products and is taking part in a “film bazaar” that is part of the International Film Festival of India 2007.

Films Division is organizing an exclusive exhibition, called Behind The Frames, during the IFFI.

This cine expo will displays different equipment and materials connected with film making — going from decades ago, to the latest gadgets.

On display are a 35 mm Mitchell camera, metal blimp camera, 16mm Bolex camera, Aaton and BL camera, Eclair NPR camera, Arri 435, zoom lenses, digital meters, Uhar recorder, Nagras, digital recorders, 35mm triple dubbers, and more.

Also competing for space are a Siemens mixing console, still cameras, moviola, sound reader, Steenbeck, 10 K and 5 K lights, Babies, sun guns, reflectors, 35mm and 16mm projectors, color and B & W picture and sound positive and negative spools and more.

Apart from these, rare film-related photographs and posters collected from different sources are also being exhibited. The rare equipments on display offers an insight into the technical nuances of film making, and how it changed over the times.

Films on the history of Indian cinema, film making and related subjects are also being screened at the exhibition venue. The expo will be held at the Dr. V J Pinto Hall, on the ground floor of a restored beautiful colonial building, part of which goes back to the 18th century in Portuguese-ruled Goa, which also served as the main hospital for the region ages ago.

This expo will remain open to delegates and public from November 24 to December 2.

Films Division’s documentary films on different subjects — especially on art, heritage, music, dance, cinema, Indian personalities, and India’s freedom struggle and the like — have been stocked in VCD format.

A marketing stall will sell the same at the INOX venue of IFFI, along with the chance to preview the films.

Films Division is also participating in the Film Bazaar organized by the Indian National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) at the Marriott, alongside Miramar beach.

“Efforts will be made for exposure of our culture, art and heritage through Film Division documentaries by proactive interaction with producers and delegates from different countries at both the film bazaar and film market stall as well,” an official statement here said.

‘Dreaming Cinema’ an exclusive documentary on the history of Indian cinema after the Independence, is being released on the occasion of the 38th IFFI. This 30 minute film will provide an overview of Indian cinema from 1947 till date, as the theme.

The second issue of ‘Documentary Today’ will be released during the festival. Apart from this, four Film Division films on freedom movement will be screened in the special section called ‘India at 60’, marking this country’s sixtieth anniversary as an independent nation.

Four Films Division films have already been selected in the Indian Panorama section this year.

Officials said the Films Division team, handling the all-important Print Unit of the IFFI, has started functioning, for ensuring “zero error screenings” at different venues.

Films Division, run by the Indian government, has been engaged in the production of documentaries and news magazines for publicity of this country’s federal government’s programmes. Its news magazines and documentaries have long been released to various theatres throughout the country for compulsory exhibition.

Film Division produces documentaries and news magazines from its headquarters at Mumbai, films on defence and family welfare from New Delhi and featurettes with a rural bias from the regional centres at Calcutta and Bangalore.

It also organises an International Film Festivals for Documentary, Short and Animation Films at Mumbai, also known as the MIFF. 2008’s MIFF will be held from February 3-9, 2008 details of which are at http://miffindia.in/

India now also has a growing number of documentary film networks such as Vikalp, CAC-Delhi, and Docuwallahs2, located on Yahoogroups.com

Films Division is divided into four wings, viz. Production, Distribution, International Documentary and Short Film Festival. See http://www.filmsdivision.org

Cinema was itself introduced to India fairly early, in 1896. Currently, the Indian film industry is rated the largest in the world in terms of the ticket sales and the number of films produced annually.

Movie tickets in India are among the cheapest in the world.  India accounts for 73% of movie admissions in the Asia-Pacific region. The industry is mainly supported by the vast cinema-going Indian public.

According to the Central Board of Film Certification of India, every three months an audience as large as India’s billion-strong population visits cinema halls. Indian films are popular specially in countries with significant Indian expat communities, but now attempts are being made to bridge the cultural gap and appeal to wider audiences.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

Cross-cultural productions make it to IFFI 2007

Panaji (Goa), Nov 22: IFFI, the International Film Festival of India that opens in Goa this Friday (ED: Nov 23, 2007) will showcase some interesting cross-cultural productions, organisers of the event being held in this coastal state for the fourth year running said.

Among these are Mira Nair’s `AIDS Jaago’ and Richie Mehta’s `Amal’ which will be having their international premieres here, and Chris Smith’s `The Pool’ which will make its Asia premiere in Goa.

IFFI currently has a section called the ‘Film India Worldwide’, being curated by casting director Uma da Cunha. It was introduced into the event last year.

This year Film India Worldwide has three films, each made in 2007, and show the way in which film-makers from diverse cultures interact with India.

Directors chosen range from a nationality other than Indian; of Indian origin settled elsewhere; and an Indian film icon using his or her magnetism and filmic skills “to make cinema’s glamour and impact work as a social weapon of disseminating awareness,” the IFFI organisers said here.

This year’s films are as follows:

Chris Smith’s The Pool (USA): Geoffrey Gilmore, longtime director of the sought after Sundance Film Festival in the US, chose `The Pool’ to compete in its 2007 January edition, where it won the Special Jury Prize.

This 104 minute American film has been shot entirely in Panjim, Goa by 36 year old Christopher Smith and co-scripted by Smith and Randy Russel. What sets the film apart is that it is an American film made entirely in Hindi, a language that its director does not know at all.

The film follows a village boy Venkatesh (Venkatesh Chavan) who arrives in Panjim and finds a job as a hotel housekeeper. His close friend is Jahangir (Jahangir Badshah). The two make extra money selling plastic bags to pedestrians.

One day Venkatesh climbs up a mango tree and from its branch sees the swimming pool of a large, seemingly deserted house. Fascinated by the shimmering pool, he makes it a habit to gaze on it almost every day.

The more savvy Jehangir tells him, “The closest you’re going to get to that pool is cleaning it.” Venkatesh gets to meet the owner, a well-to-do man from Mumbai (Nana Patekar) and his edgy, taciturn daughter Ayesha (Ayesha Mohan).

He starts working in the house when he finds time. Both father and daughter take to him in their different ways.

Watching their encounters provides an insight into how they differ socially and culturally and yet manage to mingle. They learn home truths about each other, and in the end, each affects the other’s polarized world in some way.

Director, writer and cinematographer Chris Smith, is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a former engineering student from Michigan. He is known for his introspective documentaries that tend to look with benign understanding at the spaces occupied by the rich and poor and sharing the insights they provide.

His previous films include his debut feature `American Job’ (1996), and his documentaries, `American Movie’ (1999, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance), `Home Movie’ (2001) and `The Yes Men’ (2004). The Pool is his second feature film.

Richie Mehta’s Amal (Canada-India): Toronto-based Richie Mehta’s debut film (it featured in Toronto festival’s Canada First section) has been co-scripted by him and Shaun Mehta. It tells the story of an auto-rickshaw driver, Amal (Rupinder Nagra) who is content and at peace with himself and his life.

When a little street girl (Tanisha Chatterjee) after stealing the purse of his regular customer (Koel Purie), runs away and is hit by a car. Amal takes her to hospital determined to ensure that that she recovers. One day he drives the eccentric billionaire G K Jayaram (Naseeruddin Shah), disguised as a vagabond, who is looking for the one humane person he can leave his wealth to.

But, his greedy family members want his wealth at any cost. The unsuspecting Amal is caught in this quagmire. The film asks the important question of what success means to each individual and finally reveals that sometimes the poorest of men are the richest.

Filmed in New Delhi, the film is in Hindi and English, and its durestion is 101 minutes. Other actors featured in the film are the Canadian Vik Sahay and from India, Seema Biswas and Roshan Seth.

Produced by David Miller and Steven Bray, the film is a Poor Man’s Productions Ltd film in participation with Telefilm Canada, and in association with Chum Ltd, TMN Movie Network, Movie Central, and is distributed by Seville Pictures. Its India distributor is USA-based Harish Vanjani.

Mira Nair’s AIDS Jaago: USA-India, 35 mm, Colour, 71 minutes, Hindi/Kannada Director/s: Mira Nair; Santosh Sivan; Farhan Akhtar, Vishal Bhardwaj

Joining hands with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mira Nair and her company, Mirabai Films, collaborated with three of India’s most cutting-edge directors to each helm a short narrative film about HIV/AIDS, set in different parts of the country. Nair has utilized the culture of cinema worship in India to address the country’s alarming rate of increase in AIDS cases, second only to South Africa in numbers.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

38th IFFI TAKES OFF AT INDIA’S WEST COAST AT GOA TODAY

Panaji (Goa), Nov 23, 2007: The 38th International Film Festival of India (IFFI-07) takes off later today in India’s smallest state, on the west coast of India. Mainstream Indian Bollywood film actor Shahrukh Khan will be the chief guest, scheduled for Friday evening (India is five-and-half hours behind UTC).

The inaugural lamp — a traditional mark of inaugurations done in India — will be lit with the assistance of Priyamani, a rising star of southern cinema.  Inaugural function will be attended by Indian federal Minister of Information & Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs, P. R. Dasmunsi and Chief Minister of Goa Digambar Kamat besides several important film personalities.

Media commentators, including the NDTV mainstream television channel, commented that this year’s festival was focussing less Indian commercial (“Bollywood”) cinema, and instead looking to regional films and outputs from across the globe.

The Palme D’Or winner of Cannes 2007, ‘Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days’ is to be the opening film.  Director of the opening film Cristian Mungiu and the main actress, Anamaria Marinca are to be present at the inaugural ceremony.

Besides, there would be other foreign delegates representing various international film festivals from Netherlands, China, Poland and Mexico. A major delegation from Poland and China will also be present.  Portugal-Spain film ‘Fados’ directed by Carlos Saura will be the closing film for the Festival.

The Cinema of the World Section will feature a choice of year’s international cinema.  This section will have 76 films from 42 countries.

A specialized competition for feature films by Asian, African and Latin American directors is being organized. Under this section, fourteen films from 13 countries have been selected for the competition. Specially after shifting to Goa, IFFI has been attempting to build itself up as a place for films from Asia-Africa-Latin America.

The competition jury is headed by the eminent award winning film maker from Hungary Ms Marta Mazaros, who has won awards in Cannes, Berlin, Venice and San Sebastian festivals.

Other members of the jury are actress Meltem Cumbul (Turkey); cinematographer Shaji N Karun, film director and script writer from Kerala in South India; noted Argentinian film director Pablo Cesar and Robert Sarkies, film maker from New Zealand.

Hungary will be in focus under the section ‘Country Focus’.

Seven films come from this part of the world: “Black Brush’ (Director: Roland Vranik), ‘Dealer’ (Director: Benedek Fliegauf), ‘Eastern Sugar’ (Director: Ferenc Torok), ‘Hukkle’ (Director: Gyorgy Palfi), ‘Temptations’ (Director: Zoltan Kamondi), ‘The Porcelain Doll’ (Director: Peter Gardos) and ‘Vagabond’ (Director: Gyorgy Szomjas).

In ‘Film India Worldwide’ category, three films ‘AIDS Jaago’ (Mira Nair), ‘Amal’ (Richie Mehta) and ‘The Pool’ (Chris Smith). Retrospective of Ingmar Bergman would feature seven of his highly acclaimed films, namely, ‘Autumn Sonata’, ‘Fanny and Alexander’, ‘The Seventh Seal’, ‘The Virgin Spring’, ‘Through a Glass Darkly’, ‘Shame’, and ‘Wild Strawberries’.

Indian Panorama at IFFI-2007 would present a bouquet of 36 films, comprising 21 features and 15 non-feature films. The package is a mixed bag with prominent Indian stalwarts like Budhadeb Dasgupta and Adoor Gopalakrishnan presenting two films each.

The section would have Ami Iyasin Aar Amaar Madhubala (The Voyeurs- Feature) and Naushad Ali- the Melody continues (Non Feature) by Budhadeb Dasgupta and Naalu Penunungal (Four Women- Feature) and The Dance of the Enchantress (Non Feature) by Adoor Gopalakrishnan.

The debut directors like Sameer Hanchante, Samir Chanda, and Bhavna Talwar would present their films Gafla (Scam), Ek Nadir Galpo (Tale Of A River), and Dharm respectively at the festival.

A special section celebrating 60 years of India’s independence, India @ 60, would showcase seven patriotic films including three feature and four documentaries.

IFFI also features a Film Bazaar for films from India as well as large number of foreign countries, seminars, discussions and press conferences, IFFI Goa film treasures (a section dedicated to international film heritage) and special festival publications on the films being screened, organisers of the event said.

Theatre facilities for IFFI – 2007 have been significantly upgraded. Nine theatres with a total seating capacity of 3026 would be part of the Festival complex as compared to five theatres with a total seating capacity of 2200 last year.

The theatres are, Inox Multiplex (4 screens), Kala Academy (2 screens), Ashok & Samrat (2 screens).  Two new screens have been added in Maquinez Palace, which have the capacity to be looped.  Over 3500 delegates have registered.  Around 350 media persons have registered of which 80 are from Goa, according to the Press Information Bureau, the state-run official information network here

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

INDIA OPTS FOR REGIONAL CINEMA TO REPRESENT IT AT IFFI 2007

FN

PANAJI, Goa, Nov 24: An India fast gaining on technical skills, but still struggling to get the rest of the globe to take note of its regional cinema has chosen Malayalam and Bengali films to represent the country at IFFI-2007 current underway here.

Two regional-language films from the south-west state of Kerala, and the eastern state of West Bengal will be the official entries at the Asian, African and Latin American Competition of the 38th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) that got underway here on Friday.

Lenin Rajendran’s “Night Rain” (Rathri Mazha) is about two youngsters — Harikrishnan and Meera — who come to know each other through a matrimonial advertisement on a website.

Through intermittent chat sessions they get drawn to each other. Though they have not met, love blossoms. But what they love is what each imagines the other person to be.

When they eventually meet, their dreams are shattered. But their minds have been so bonded together that they decide to marry and make the best of it. It is now society that looks askance at their relationship.

Director Lenin Rajendra is an active member of the Communist Party, in a province of India (Kerala) that has intermittently elected the Marxists to rule their region through the ballot box.

Reflecting his politics, his other films have dealt with an anti-feudal upheaval in the Kerala of the 1940s (“Meenamasithile Sooryan”, 1985), a period film about a 19th century king (“Swathi Thirunal”, 1987), an adaptation of a novel (“Vikrithikal”, 1992), on the religious divide growing in the region (“Annyar”, 2003), among others.

India’s other entry is “Tale of a River” (Ek Nadir Galpo), in the Bengali language which is spoken in India as also in parts of neighbouring Bangladesh. It is by Samir Chanda.

“Tale of a River” celebrates the special relationship that fathers and daughters share. Darakeshwar is Anu’s hero and she is her father’s pride and joy. The body between the two transcends time and even death.

Darakeshwar’s mission is to rename a river in memory of his daughter, who is lost in the river.

In a diverse country that has to cope with a Babel of languages, the IFFI manages to draw together quite some amount of regional films. Subtitling these films in English, specially done for the IFFI, helps to widen their appeal beyond the language they were first produced in.

INDIAN PANORAMA: Other Indian films selected include “Ore Kadal” (Malayalam), directed by Shyamaprasad, which will open the Indian Panorama feature film section, while “Bagher Bacha” (Bengali) directed by Bishnu Dev Halder will open the non-feature section of the Indian Panorama section that showcases made-in-India cinema and promises a “360 degree view of Indian cinema”.

These selections were made out of 119 feature and 149 non feature films from across India.

Selecting India’s entries for the event were feature film jury members Ms. Manju Borah, film maker from Guwahati; Leslie Carvalho, film maker from Bangalore; Abhijeet Dasgupta, film maker from Kolkata; Dr. Mrunalinni Patil Dayal, film maker from Mumbai and Ms. Shubhra Gupta, film critic from Delhi.

NON-FEATURE FILMS: The non feature film jury comprised of Delhi filmmaker Pankaj Butalia; Mumbai film-maker Ms. Kavita Chaudhary, and Guwahati film-maker Gautam Saikia.

In this vast land of big numers, some 21 feature films and 15 non-feature films have been selected for the 38th edition of the International Film Festival of India, held annually in November-December and shifted from New Delhi to Goa since 2004.

The non-feature films focus on a range of themes, from the horrors and adventure in the life of a ten-year-old child living in a railway station in Kolkata (“Bagher Bacha”, or “The Tiger’s Club”), to a return to an ancestral village after decades (“Harvilele Indradhansh” or “Teh Lost Rainbow”), and the Egnlish-language 80-minut estory of Indian soldiers still languishing as prisoners of war in Pakistan (“Hope Dies Last In War”).

“Joy Ride” (10 minutes, Hindi) is one of the entries, as is another film on the journey of a great Bollywood film music director of the yesteryears, Dattaram (“Masti Bhara Hai Sama”, Hindi, 80 minutes).

Another film is on famed South Indian writer M.T.Vasudevan Nair (“M.Tyude Kumaranellurile Kulangal” or “MT’s Ponds of Kumaranellor”). “Mubarak Begum” (Hindi, 19 minutes) focuses on the life of the top playback singer of the same name, while another film is a biography of legendary music composer Naushad Ali.

“Ngaihak Lambida” (“Along The Way”) is a film coming from the small North East Indian language of Manipuri.

This film is about a 35-year-old woman, the second-wife of a contractor, whose son gets hospitalised, leading her to get attracted to a stranger — over whom she makes a choice for herself.

“Nokpokliba” (English, 10 minutes) is based on a folk-talk from Nagaland, again from north-eastern India. It is a story about a magician who brings justice to his people through his magic.

Another film on an artiste is “Pandit Ramnarayan — Sarangi Ke Sang”. This biographical film (Hindi, 50 minutes) portrays the evolution of Pandit Ramnarayan as one of the finest musicians. Ramnarayan is to Sarangi (the bow-stringed instrument of South Asia) what Mozart was to piano.

“Poomaram” (“The Flowering Tree”, Malayalam) is about menstruation, males, menstrual rites and the development of agriculture, mathematics, writing, calendars and other realms of knowledge.

“Rajarshee Bhagyachandra of Manipur” (English, 58 minutes) is about a great king of the past, a cultural architect whose artistic creations brought a social-cultural revolution to his people.

“The Dance of The Enchantress” (Malayalam) is about Indian dance, and produced-directed by prominent South Indian film-maker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, who has scripted and directed ten feature films and more than two dozen shorts and documentaries.

“Whose Land Is It Anyway” (English, 40 minutes) is a film about an ongoing peasant movement in Singur village, to save a thousand acres of their farm-land from beign acquired by the West Bengal government for a car manufacturing factory by an Indian industrial giant, the Tatas.iffi

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

Indian media and entertainment close to "large-scale evolution”

[From Frederick Noronha] Panjim (Goa), Nov 23, 2007: India’s media and entertainment (M&E) sector is close to a “large-scale, game-changing evolution”.

Digital technology and distribution, the growth of home entertainment, new distribution media like internet and IPTV, and the growing global appeal of new Indian movies are all driving this trend, says a new report here.

Business lobby network CII, Confederation of Indian Industry, commissioned international management consultants A.T. Kearney to “provide insights on actual business models that will emerge within this space.”

Kearney’s report says the Indian economy’s growth and the new factors above could result “in the (media and entertainment) industry ranking high among the fastest growing sectors in India and the fastest M&E industry in the world”.

“From the existing size of US$11 billion (INR 450 billion), reports have estimated the industry to grow at a CAGR of ~18% (rpt ~18%) to reach US$25 billion (INR 1 trillion) by 2011,” says a report released by the CII during the ongoing international film festival of India, underway in Goa.

TV, print and film will “continue their dominance in the next five years”, says the report, while noting that there are new segments like gaming and radio emerging.

“The (Indian) public fascination with films explains why the Indian film industry produces the most number of movies in teh world — over 1000 films annually,” says the report.

But it also hints to some area of potential concern — how digitisation will affect the “Indian film value chain” including production, distribution and exhibition; and what will be the drivers and rate of adoption, specially in exhibition where the tech changes have most impact.

Likewise, the study wonders what implications digitisation would have “on the way firms do business in this industry” and whether it could “fundamentally change the structure of the industry”.

It raises other questions about digital distribution of films, whether exhibitors coujld improve their bargaining power with large producers, and the form in which Indian production houses need to get corporatised.

This report also wonders: Are theatres dead or what will bring the young population back to the theatre culture? What does it take for an Indian production house to become truly global? How can the industry as a whole fight the menacy of piracy?

India’s film industry was estimated to be worth US 1.8 billion overall in 2006. Kearney estimates it would be worth US$ 4.4-5.1 billion (INR 176 billion – INR 204 billion) by 2011.

It stresses that digitisation of films, and changing consumer preferences, are going to “fundamentally change the landscape of the Indian film industry”.

Digitisation would eliminate the cost of physical prints (Rs 50,000 to 60,000 per copy) and make the release of a movie across multiple locations simultaneoyusly, minimising losses due to piracy and “negative word-of-mouth”. This could make theatres in smaller towns mor viable.

In Tier II and III towns of India, there is an estimated potential for 2000-3000 high-quality screen, it suggests.

But it warns the emergence of large multiplex changes will “significantly balance the power equation between the producer-distributor and the exhibitors, which has traditionally been largely skewed towards the former.”

It warns that domestic box-office will face a growing competition from the international box-office, home video and some other new media forms.

Some interesting figures: Upto 97% of urban youth prefer to watch movies in multiplexes, in contrast to over 75% of non-urban population preferring to watch movies at home.

Even Bollywood movies in the recent past have tasted success in the international arena, with a few recent hits collecting over 50% of their overall gross from global box-office collections.

Connections count. Movies made by persons of Indian origin have raked upto 2-3 times the international revenues of national bestsellers.

India’s home video earns just 8% of overall movie revenues, compared to some developed markets, where it contributes over 40%. This share could touch 14% by 2010. DVD players are growing, and original DVD prices are dropping to combat piracy.

TV has reached 60% households, and 13% of TV revenues come from film content, meaning a significant population relies on TV to view movie content.

Last few years have seen satellite rights grow at 25-30% from Rs 3-5 crore three years ago for a blockbuster to Rs 8-10 crore now.

Mobile is seen as showing “significant growth”, with subscribers doubling year on year to reach 220 million subscribers today. “Unfortunately for the music aggregators and service providers, a significant portion (70-80%) of these revenues is retained by the operators,” says the study.

Internet penetration in India remains low, and IPTV, which is growing globally, is still at a “nascent stage” in India. (IPTV) uses the internet protocol and high-spreed broadband networks to view TV content).

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

Goa, coping with the pressures of a shiftover of the IFFI from New Delhi

[By Frederick Noronha] Panjim, Goa, Nov 22, 2007: Faced with having to cope with the pressures of shifting its venue from the Indian national capital to the country’s smallest province, the IFFI (International Film Festival of India) is currently working to win friends and influence people here in the former Portuguese colony of Goa.

India’s attempt — which started since the IFFI shifted here in November 2004 — is aimed at recreating an “Indian Cannes” of sorts, in this small region, known better for being a holidayer’s paradise and region filled with beaches and an interesting mix of food and music.

Goa’s main problem: it doesn’t have much of a film-culture of its own.

Two other problems, at least, also afflict the shifting of the film-festival here. One is political. Opinion tends to get sharply polarised here.

When the IFFI first came to Goa in 2004, the supporters of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were its big fans. Now that that party is in opposition, it is the ruling Congress which is trying to make the most of the event, while allies and supporters of the BJP go about criticising the event.

In the meanwhile, Goa is also getting squeezed between the various Indian regional film industries, a few of whom are for Goa being the venue of IFFI, and more believe that their own region could play a better host.

Bollywood — as the moneyspinning mainly-Hindi, Mumbai (Bombay)-based film industry from western Indian is known — appears to be largely in favour of the festival being hosted in Goa. Regional Indian film industries from Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh) and Kolkatta (West Bengal) appear not so well disposed to the festival being sited here.

But the Confederation of Indian Industry, a national level trade body that sees the money, rather than the entertainment, side of films to be important, itself largely appears to be supportive of Goa as the venue.

Government employees, themselves a harried lot having to cope with this small region’s stretched infrastructure, sometimes show their dislike of having to work on a festival being held in Goa rather than in New Delhi, a city they are more used to.

Goa, India’s smallest state, also has the challenge of coping with the difficulties of building its infrastructure upto par, raising money to fend for the festival, and pulling off things without too much inefficiency amidst the growing number of impatient fans and film buffs thronging to the festival.

This year the state has attempted to increase the number of seats available at the festival, and extend screenings to a few more theatres. Also, the process for applying — for both delegates and media — has been placed online, which speedened up things but also ran into some technical glitches in a case of some registrations.

Panjim, the Goan state capital, announced that the street carnival-style fanfare would be minimised during IFFI 2007, which begins here on Friday, November 23, 2007.

This is seen as important to avoid dislocations and further traffic-jams in this small state-capital of barely 50,000 inhabitants, whose population swells to double its size daily because of the influx of government servants and others.

Meanwhile, the Entertainment Society of Goa, the organisation which is entrusted with the local preparations for the event by the regional governmentn announced it would organise a series of competitions in time for the IFFI.

It said IFFI this year would create “talent platforms” for Goa with film-related competitions to encourage local participation.

These competitions would include a lyric writing competition (in the languages of English, Hindi, Konkani, Marathi). Participants would have to submit a single entry of their original lyrics.

There would also be a multi-lingual film story competition; music compsition competition; a photo-competition to shoot unknown locations in scenic Goa for filming; and even a floor-painting competition depicting film personalities.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: iffi2007, goa

Rendez-vous with French cinema at IFFI 2007 in Goa

FN/Nov 22: More than 15 long features and co-productions, representing a diversity of French cinema, will be showcased during IFFI, the International Film Festival of India, that begins in Goa later this week.

From the inception of this new form of art, more than a century ago, both France and India felt a strong inclination for what was to be commonly known as the seventh art, says Jérôme Bonnafo, Ambassador of France in India.

Among them, the French Oscar entry ”Orchestra Seats” (“Fauteuils d’Orchestre”), the box-office hit “Taxi 4” and three keenly awaited films of this year: “99 Francs” (a film adaptation of a best-seller book), “The Second Wind” (a remake of one of finest film in French cinema history) and the amazing “Intimate Ennemy” (a first of its kind look at the Algerian struggle for independence).

IFFI organisers here said the six  films “Living Together” collection prepared by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs are “modern-day fables about French society”. Meanwhile the Film Heritage section, co-organised by the Thomson Foundation, will attempt to bring together some of the masterpieces of the history of World cinema.

Veteran filmaker and indophile Alain Corneau will be leading the French delegation to IFFI at Goa, comprising of Florent-Emilio Siri, Jan Kounen, and talented young actress Fanny Valette as well as the Thomson Foundation team, the European Club of Producers, Samira Zaibat of the international critic’s week in Cannes, and Fabien Westerhoff participating in the NFDC organised Film Bazaar section.

Retrospective “Living Together” will include  six films:  Samia by Philippe Faucon; When you come down from Heaven (Quand tu descendras ducie) by Eric Guirard; What’s going on (Wesh, Wesh, qu’est ce qui se passe? by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche; My neighbours (Voisins, voisines) by Malik Chibane; Zim & Co by Pierre Jolivet; and Forgetting Cheyenne (Oublier Cheyenne) by Valérie Minetto.

Cinema of the World will include: The Second Wind (Le 2ème souffle) by Alain Corneau (2007); The Intimate Enemy (L’ennemi intime) by Florent Emilio Siri (2007); 99 Francs by Jan Kounen (2007); Change of address (Changement d’adresse) by Emmanuel Mouret (2006); Taxi 4 by Gérard Krawczyk (2007); Orchestra Seats (Les Fauteuils d’orchestre) by Danièle Thomson (2006); The Songs of Love (Les Chansons d’amour) by Christophe Honoré (2007); The Page turner (La Tourneuse de pages) by Denis Dercourt (2005); The Other (L’Autre) by Ariel Rotter (co-production / 2007); and Goodbye Bafana by Bille August (co-production / 2007).

Blogged with Flock

Tags: IFFI2007, goa

Film festival to open with award-winning Romanian movie

FN / Panaji, Nov 15 (IANS) The Romanian winner of the Palme d’Or and the FIPRESCI Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”, will be the opening movie of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) which begins in Goa Nov 23.

The film is set in communist Romania in the final years of the Nicolae Ceausescu era. It tells the tragic story of two students, roommates in the university dormitory, who try to arrange an illegal abortion for one of them in the late 1980s.

After making its worldwide debut at Cannes, the film made its Romanian debut on June 1 at the Transylvania International Film Festival.

Directorate of Film Festivals chief Neelam Kapur announced in New Delhi that the opening ceremony would be “simple and elegant” and in keeping with international standards. Ever since the venue of IFFI was shifted to Goa in 2004, the organisers have been criticised for attempting a distracting carnival, also lending to congestion in the state capital Panaji.

Noted Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan will be the chief guest at the inaugural ceremony, which will be attended by politicians from New Delhi and Goa and other film personalities.

The director of the opening film Cristian Mungiu and the lead actress Anamaria Marinca are expected to be present at the inaugural ceremony. Besides, there will be delegates from Netherlands, China, Poland and Mexico.

The Indian Panorama section of IFFI 2007 will showcase 36 films, including 21 feature films. The section will have two works each of stalwarts Budhadeb Dasgupta and Adoor Gopalakrishnan.

The section will have the feature films “Ami Iyasin Aar Amaar Madhubala” (The Voyeurs) and “Naalu Penunungal” (Four Women) as well as non-feature films “Naushad Ali – The Melody Continues” and “The Dance of the Enchantress”.

Debut directors like Sameer Hanchante, Samir Chanda and Bhavna Talwar will present their films “Gafla” (Scam), “Ek Nadir Galpo” (Tale of a River), and “Dharm” respectively at the festival.

A specialised competition for feature films by Asian, African and Latin American directors is also being organized. Films produced after Sep 1, 2006 are eligible.

Fourteen films have been selected from 13 countries for the competition. Eminent Hungarian filmmaker Marta Mazaros heads the jury, which includes Turkish actress Meltem Cumbul, Kerala cinematographer, film director and script-writer Shaji N. Karun, Argentine film director Pablo Cesar and New Zealand film-maker Robert Sarkies.

A special section celebrating 60 years of India’s independence, India @ 60, will showcase seven patriotic films including three feature and four documentaries.

The chief executive officer of the Entertainment Society of Goa, Nandini Paliwal, said theatre facilities are being significantly upgraded for IFFI 2007. This year, nine theatres with a total seating capacity of 3,026 will be part of the festival complex, compared to five theatres with a total seating capacity of 2,200 last year.

Theatres that will be part of the festival are Inox Multiplex (four screens), Kala Academy (two screens), Ashok and Samrat (two screens). Two new screens, which have the capacity to be looped, are being added to Maquinez Palace. Officials said a “state of the art media centre” had been set up in the same compound.

The registration of delegates has been made completely online for the festival this year. Officials are claiming that 2,700 applications, including 1,200 from Goa, have already been approved although the last date for registration is Nov 20.

To avoid long queues at theatres, a system of booking of tickets three days in advance has been introduced this time. There will be real time display on TV screens around the venue with information on seat availability for each screening. Long queues and crowds had marred the smooth functioning of the festival in previous years. 

Blogged with Flock

Tags: IFFI2007, goa