IFFI Diary

October 9, 2003

Delegate cards were still being doled out. The carpenters were still busyputting the Film Bazaar stalls in order and food counters were waiting forthe food to arrive. Early in the day, in keeping with the festivaltradition, there was no sign of order at the Siri Fort Auditorium, on itslast leg as the venue for the International Film Festival of India. Nextyear the show moves permanently to Goa which the I&B minister, Ravi ShankarPrasad claimed is one of the best symbols of "Brand India". And so, itseems, is entertainment.

According to Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani,India should take a lead in entertainment the way it has in the infotechsector: "For many countries in the world films are a measure forunderstanding India." Advani was chosen to inaugurate the event not for theoffice he holds but for the fact that he has been a film critic and coveredit as journalist in 1965 in Delhi.

Another film buff who took stage wasactor Kamalhassan who pushed the government to take some active steps inthe area of film financing so that the loan sharks and the underworld couldbe kept at bay. He also fondly remembered taking the autograph of Polishfilmmaker Krzystof Zanussi, who happens to be the chairperson of the jurythis year.

And even as Kareena Kapoor, the lady of the lamp, was mistakenlycalled Karisma by the I&B minister, she remained a favourite with thelensmen. And the celebs who didn't get a second look from the janta: M.S.Gill and Ramesh "Sholay" Sippy.

October 10, 2003

The Goa CM may not have come for the show but Viva Goa is here. Thedelicacies of the state have been keeping the delegates well fed on theSiri Fort lawns with Sol Cadi, a tangy drink made from Kokum, emerging thestrong festival favourite. Funnily the Goan food seems to have been cookedby a group of enterprising Marathi ladies, a reason why batata wada,sabudana wada and poha also landed on the menu. The other two states withexclusive food stalls are Kerala and Kashmir both of whom are also busywooing Bollywood to come and shoot.

But the second day of the festival clearly belonged to Maharashtra withMarathi cinema in the spotlight. "Hopefully now no one will ask the questionas to why Marathi cinema has been such a bad state," said Amol Palekar. Theinaugural films for both the non-feature as well as the feature filmssection came from the state:Arun Khopkar's essay on the life and works ofrevolutionary Marxist poet Narayan Gangaram Surve and Amol Palekar's Anaahat about a queen coming face to face with her sexuality in 10thcentury BC Malla kingdom. It was yet another coincidence that both thefilmmakers, Palekar and Khopkar, also happened to be school-mates.

Mr Advani sat through the entire length of the opening film, ChandraprakashDwivedi's Pinjar, a tragic tale of love in the times of the Partition. Butthe scheduling of some films left a lot to be desired.

The prized catchLars Von Trier's Dogville got shown to the public even before the press anddelegates could have a look. Also the public screenings don't go beyond the16th of October while the festival is on till the 19th. Was it because PVRwas not willing to let go of its regular commercial fodder for long?

The film of the day was Marco Bellocchio's My Mother's Smile. A film aboutreligion and faith, it focuses on the dilemmas of an atheist as his familymakes efforts to try and get her canonised.

Wolfgang Becker's delightful Goodbye Lenin is about Alex whose mother goesinto coma just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. When she wakes up hetries to continue keeping East Germany alive for her.After all, capitalismcan't be the God of a socialist activist.

October 11, 2003

The Amol Palekar press conference found a valid question: why arescreenings preceded by long speeches and ceremonies lasting more than halfan hour? Palekar may have bowed out of answering this query but the issueraised its head again when film scholar Ira Bhaskar painstakingly beganexplaining the ouevre of Lars Von Trier and the Dogme 5 philosophy thatbelieved in keeping technology at its minimum in cinema.

Protests arosefrom a section of the audience to let them experience the film themselves.Von Trier, scared of travelling by air, hasn't travelled beyond Europe buthis art has. His Epidemic is strange tale of the crew of a film getting afflicted by a plague- like disease.

The other film of the day was theharrowing Australian tale of a marriage going sour. Ralf de Heer's Alexandra's Project is about a woman wreaking vengeance on her husbandafter years of unhappy marriage. Eyes are not the only expressive organs ofour body. In this film it's the breasts of actress Helen Buday that do allthe talking. Sad and also very sadistic, disturbing cinema.

October 12, 2003

The Maqbool cast had the entire Delhi to cheer them on. The filmmakerVishal Bhardwaj himself has been a Delhi boy and so have been actors PankajKapoor, Irrfan and Piyush Mishra and producer Bobby Bedi. In fact, Vishaldecided to stay on for the festival after the screening was over even as hefondly remembered jostling for delegate passes as a college student. Thestar guest for the premiere was model-actor Milind Soman, there toencourage good friend Tabu.

Film of the day was young French filmmakerFrancois Ozon's sexy and stylish Swimming Pool. Sarah Morton, an Englishmystery writer, travels to France to work and rest at her publisher'shouse. But things turn upside down when Julie, the publisher's young,bohemian daughter, arrives on the scene. What happens thereafter keeps theviewers perplexed--is it reality or a page out of Sarah's novel?