Mumbai Film Festival: Day 5

Over the weekend, Fun Republic has seen record crowds... people packing the aisles and standing at the back of the hall craning their necks

Mumbai Film Festival: Day 5

Over the weekend, Fun Republic has seen record crowds... people packing the aisles and standing at the back of the hall craning their necks. It's a pity that Metro and R Mall at Ghatkopar are running empty, because some good films have been scheduled there, which the enthusiastic audience at the main venue is missing out on.

Meet Me At The Mango Tree

Zero Bridge

There are just too many films so it's not even possible to have more then one screening of any but the most in-demand films.u00a0 "I am not so bothered about the films that are there, I am still ruing the films that we couldn't get," said Festival director S Narayanan, taking a small breather in between films. Otherwise for the team handling things, it has been an endless round of organising events, looking after guests, and seeing that everything moves smoothly. There are a few glitches here and there, films running late, careless projectionists and so on... but on the whole, film buffs seem to be enjoying the festival. But no crowd favourite has emerged so far. Antichrist got the crowds, and political satire In The Loop the laughs.u00a0 Ushers are handing out little forms for audiences to vote, so that the most popular film gets the Audience Choice Award.

After a screening of Meet Me At The Mango Tree by Australian Brian Mckenzie, a local filmmaker commented on how foreign directors get funding even to make films on 'ordinary' people in India. You see her point, who would fund a film on an istriwala in India, and who would see it?u00a0 McKenzie spent five years and four trips to Chennai to film the stories of five ordinary people, three of which found themselves in the film. For an Indian, these people are so much a part of daily existence, that there is no particular interest in their lives, but seen from the point of view of a foreigner, who sees these people with a curious and sympathetic eye, we realise how much is hidden from our view because we simply don't look.

The genesis of this film is also rather interesting, According to their website," McKenzie and producer Santhana Naidu were drinking tea and talking film in Brian's kitchen. McKenzie threw out a challenge: "Why don't you write something about India that we can make into a documentary?" Naidu went straight to his library and pulled out all the books by R Ku00a0 Narayan, the great Indian writer of whom V S Naipaul has said "wrote from deep within his community"..... Inspired by Narayan's work and determined not to portray India as so many Westerners have done, Santhana Naidu wrote a series of stories set amongst the hundreds of small vendors and shops around the Meenakshi temple in Madurai, Southern India."u00a0 The film follows an old ironing man, still using an antique coal iron, a young boy who makes a living doing odd jobs and a TV repair man, and the film shows a slice of India that could well have emerged from the pen of Narayan.

One of the films that has got some attention at the festival, is Zero Bridge by Tariq Tapa and is set in Kashmir. What makes the film unique is that it has been made by a one-man crew Tapa wrote, shot, directed, co-produced, and co-edited. The film is about a young pickpocket in Kashmir, with a local cast of first-time, non-professional actors performing in their native language and with the director (The film's website makes a reference to 'Indian-occupied city of Srinagar, Kashmir'; objectionable).

This year, the festival has a business lounge for interested people to meet and negotiate buying and selling of films, and according to Narayanan, it has been a success. To begin with, DVD rights of Lars Von Trier's Antichrist have been acquired for India. More such news will follow.

Meanwhile, Rituparno Ghosh swept into the Festival venue like royalty, followed by admirers and camera crews. His film Abhohoman is part of the Indian Frame section of the festival about a married director's relationship with a much younger actress rumoured to be based on the Satyajit Ray-Madhabi Mukherjee story, which Ghosh repeatedly denied.

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