Impact: After-life of films

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Ok, You've made a film. And released it. Then what? The International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights, FIFDH, in Geneva, Switzerland, that I attended recently, has a history of focusing on the answer to this question, the after-life of films. It has an elaborate programme designed for maximum impact of films, exploring the real life possibilities of films, beyond festivals, box office and streaming.

So, I was very honoured to be invited on the Fiction Competition Jury of the 22nd FIFDH, that ran from March 8 to 17. The superb fiction films in competition included Agnieszka Holland's Green Border, Malika Musaeva's The Cage is Looking for a Bird, Felipe Galvez Haberle's The Settlers, Mehran Tamadon's There Where God Does Not Exist, Mohamed Kordofani's Goodbye Julia, Paola Cortelessi's There's Still Tomorrow, Rolf de Heer's The Survival of Kindness, Farah Nabulsi's The Teacher, and Simone Massi's Nowhere. Our jury - director Sepideh Farsi, producer Flavia Zanon Rabaeus, Thierry B Oppikofer of the Barbour Foundation, and myself - gave the Fiction Competition award (R9.5 lakh) ex-aequo to Malika Musaeva's The Cage is Looking for a Bird (in Chechen) and Felipe Galvez Haberle's The Settlers (Chile). Congratulations also to Laura Longobardi and Laila Alonso Huarte, Festival Editorial Co-Directors, and Jasmin Basic, Head of Fiction Programme.

I have some experience in impact of films, and was keen to learn more. For instance, I was involved in the inclusive screening, for blind and sighted people, of Tu Hai Mera Sunday and Turup, organised by Point of View (POV, the non-profit that amplifies women's voices; I'm vice chairperson on the board), in collaboration with the Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival. We had done audio description of the films for the blind, and we had blindfolds on each seat, so the sighted could voluntarily blindfold themselves to "see" a film as the blind do, if they wished. I've also conducted a workshop for POV with a screening of the wonderful Secret Superstar, with audio description for the blind and discussion after, at the Kumudben Dwarkadas Vora Industrial Home for Blind Women, Andheri (teenage Muslim girl becomes a pop star, and initiates a divorce case for her mum against her abusive father; revolutionary!). Following a screening of Elisa Paloschi's documentary Driving with Selvi at the Patuck Technical High School and Junior College, Santa Cruz, I conducted a sharing and discussion workshop for mainly underprivileged vocational students, and they even raised money on the spot to send a weeping, homesick student home by train to her village in Ratnagiri for Diwali.

As far as I know, few organisations in India work on impact systematically from A-Z, and with the scale that FIFDH does. As a human rights festival, they have already identified key issues, including refugees, migration, LGBTQi+, women and girls, disability, climate change, etc. Starting from the call for film projects, they conduct workshops over seven months for filmmakers, NGOs, international organisations working on the issue, and philanthropists. Then comes FIFDH Impact Days, a lab for socially engaged cinema, with a catalogue of films, impact programme and awards, that brings together NGOs, filmmakers, impact practitioners and funders to find joint strategies around common human rights themes.

They also have amazing outreach. Their school programme is well established, with screenings at festival venues, as well as in schools, with teaching material (pedagogical kit, filmed introduction and thematic discussion) for teachers and students. They also have 30 films available online for schools for free, year-round. During the festival and year-round events, FIFDH attracts over 40,000 attendees at 80 venues in Geneva, including the UN, museums, theatres, hospitals and prisons, to foster inclusivity. Their debates have featured Nobel Prize winners Shirin Ebadi and Joseph Stiglitz, activist Angela Davis, artist Ai Weiwei, and authors Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Arundhati Roy, among others. It would be wonderful if impact-led organisations in India could join the dots like FIFDH.

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com