IFFI Diary

DAY 3

Middling Fare

The International Film Festival of India has traditionally been a great platform for seeing the latest andbest of cinema from Iran, one of the leading centres of film production in Asia. This year has been anexception. The big names of Iranian cinema are conspicuously absent. Maestro Abbas Kiarostami's latest, Ten,is being screened in the New York festival even though he has been denied a visa to attend the event. Whycouldn't he and his film come to the cinebuffs in Delhi? No answers are forthcoming. What we've got instead isa middling fare.

Pick of the Pack

Perhaps the pick of the pack would be Dariush Mehrjui's Bemani (Stay Alive), a film thatinterweaves three separate tales of women's subjugation. One of the three girls is killed by her brotherbecause she falls in love with a soldier. Another is not allowed to pursue medicine by her tyrannical father.Bemani herself is married off to a rich, old man. What is the escape route from her tortuous existence?Setting herself afire even though it implies that Bemani would stand to lose her "biggest weapon":beauty. The film is structured like a series of testimonials and ends tellingly at the graveyard as the makerconcludes that the dead are more faithful than those alive.

Amazing Amandla

In the absence of any uplifting fare from Iran it's the films of South Africa and Brazil that have caughteveryone's eye. Amandla, Lee Hirsch's musical journey into the revolution in South Africa left manytransfixed, particularly those already hooked on to African Jazz.

Paro 1934

After getting Paro 2002, alias Aishwarya, for the inaugural, IFFI also brought us face-to-face with theoriginal Paro, Jamuna Barua who played the role in P.C. Barua's 1934 version of Devdas. She speciallyflew down from Calcutta to inaugurate the restrospective section and also talked about the productiontechniques of yore, how they shot outdoors instead of the sets.

Life: STD

Mrinalda is not the only one who seems to have quietened down. Celebrated Polish maker Krzysztof Zanussi's Lifeas a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease was a rather sedate work about a terminally ill doctor. In fact,the end, a perfectly timed moment of death, made it seem more in the mould of Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anand.

Old is Gold

Some of the most accomplished performances at the IFFI have come from the old hands, literally. K.N.TSastry's Tiladaanam, the story of a Brahmin-turned-corpse carrier and his Naxalite son derived all itsstrength from the lead actor's nuanced show. Girish Kasarvalli's Dweepa was held together by thespirited old Ganappa and Ram Gopal Bajaj was wonderful as the old, lecherous theatre owner in BuddhadebDasgupta's Tale of a Naughty Girl.

DAY 4

American Chai

Film festivals have a way of creating instant celebrities. American Chai, a predictable tale ofcoming to terms with one's Indian identity in America, found quite a few takers including the ushers and thebouquet girls who went scurrying for the autographs of brothers Anurag (director) and Aalok (actor) Mehta. Forthose who've watched American Desi, Chai is a case of deja vu. Sureel can't tell his parentsthat he's studying music, not medicine that they have always desired. He finds himself torn between atraditional home and a progressive world he shares with his American friends. Like the protagonist of hisfilm, Anurag too finds himself caught between two worlds. He is a fan of AB but wants to make Hollywood films.Following the success of Bend It Like Beckham and American Desi, Chai too is gunning forthe commercial circuit. It releases in India in January 2003. Question is how many more such identity crisisfilms can the market take?

DAY 5

Belated Welcome

Lars Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark may have been two years too late to reach us but is worth thewait. Bjork plays Selma, a music-crazy Czech immigrant working in a factory in America. She's gradually losingher eyesight and her son too could share the same sad fate. Tragedy strikes when her neighbour steals themoney she has collected for the operation of her son. The story might sound mushy but the music, the treatmentand a sensational performance from Bjork make for a compelling viewing. The all-American musical is given anovel twist by Von Trier. It's not just the hills and vales that are alive with the sound of music. Songsemerge in a factory, on a railway track, in a court, in the jail, even after a murder or in the throes ofdeath.

Divorce Italian Style

As likeable as Bjork was Marcello Mastroianni in the delightfully funny film from Pietro Germi, DivorceItalian Style that won the best comedy award at Cannes 1962 and also fetched Mastoianni an Oscarnomination for best supporting actor. Mastroianni is brilliantly deadpan as Ferdinando who is tired of hismarriage and has an eye for his young cousin. Italian society disapproves of divorce but fully understandscrimes of passion so Ferdinando hatches a plot: to first prove that his wife is an adulteress and kill herthereafter. What ensues is a hilarious take on marital conventions.

DAY 6

Comfort of Classics

When in doubt go for the classics, they're always a safe bet. So is Francois Truffaut's stylish TheWoman Next Door starring a young Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant. The two neighbours were one-timelovers. Their lives fall apart as they realise that they can't be together and yet can't do without eachother.

Too Hot for Journos?

The "hot" scenes were liberally splashed in an unlikely film. Bongja from Korea had theviewers at the Siri Fort hurriedly SMSing friends to come over for some fun. The tale of a 30-somethingwoman's life being turned upside down by a teenager used any pretext possible to squeeze in nudity and bedroomscenes. Some journos were not amused and expressed their displeasure to the festival director, Deepak Sandhu.By then it was already too late.

Visa Problems

No Turning Back presented yet another face of America, this time through the story of an illegalSpanish immigrant, Pedro, who accidentally kills a little girl. A journalist, Soid, follows him to videotapehis adventures and his attempts to find a good life for his young daughter Cristina.

Pregnant Pause

Gabriele Muccino's The Last Kiss is a funny take on life's ordinariness. The wordy, conversationalfilm is about Carlo, who has a panic attack when his girlfriend declares that she's pregnant. His friend'shorror stories about child rearing make him more edgy and he's tempted to have an affair with an 18-year-old.The comedy about love, courtship and marriage is based on the philosophy that normality is the biggestrevolution.

DAY 7

Blooming Festivals

With Trivandrum, Mumbai, Kolkatta and now even Pune getting a fest of their own, isn't IFFI losing itsalready diminishing sheen? Most of the Indian panorama films themselves had been on view at the Cinemayafilm festival in Delhi. However, fest director Deepak Sandhu feels that "a million such fests shouldbloom". "We're not competing but supporting a common cause of bringing in quality cinema," shesaid.

Marriage Proposals?

IFFI this year had a touch of commerce. One of the new attempts has been to set up a Film Bazaar. Themarket is a joint effort of NFDC, CII and FICCI and the obvious target is to raise the growing exportsfurther. It also showcases facilities and locations for shooting in India. However, are there enough foreigndelegates to reach out to? According to NFDC managing director, Deepankar Mukhopadhyay, enquiries have beencoming from China, South Africa, Mauritius, Sri Lanka among others. But deals are still far from being struck."Negotiations are like marriage proposals, they take at least six months to fructify. But we've made animportant beginning," he said. Yashraj Films that already has a distribution foothold in "80% of theforeign market", in UK, USA and Dubai, decided to participate to target the non-traditional markets. Theyclaim that quotations they've been getting weren't good but a "start has to be made from somewhere".

The market out there is not just for Bollywood. Arya Bhattacharya, the producer of Buddhadeb Dasgupta's Taleof a Naughty Girl, claimed that the film has been picked up for North American release for a minimumguarantee of a "seven figure sum in US dollars". Subsequently they'll also get a 75% share of theroyalty.