How did indigenous music from the villages of the Tangkhul Naga make it to the stage? Do we still care about August 15 in modern India? NCPA's Fresh Pix film festival answers all your questions with a select list of award-winning indie films
How did indigenous music from the villages of the Tangkhul Naga make it to the stage? Do we still care aboutu00a0 August 15 in modern India? NCPA's Fresh Pix film festival answers all your questions with a select list of award-winning indie films
It's not everyday that you have Lord Krishna walking the streets of Mumbai. Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) student Arunima Sharma followed him, or rather an actor playing him, around with a camera crew for her final year project. Ten days later, the budding director had a 23-minute film Shyam Raat Seher ready for evaluation. The 2011 National Award for Best Direction in the Non-Feature Film category and Best Cinematography for the film received was simply the cherry on her ice-cream scoop.u00a0u00a0
A still from Manipuri filmmaker Oinam Doren's film Songs of Mashangva
Sharma's film plays out in Hindi and is about a night in Mumbai where a middle-aged actor playing Krishna roams the streets wearing his costume and searches for his wife. In the process, he bumps into three people: a night watchman, a model and her body double.
The Mumbai-resident finds it hard to describe her work and says she doesn't have an audience in mind. "In film school your only audience is the faculty and other students. I made the film because it was something close to me," she says.
Shyam Raat Seher is one of the films chosen by the NCPA for their Fresh Pix film festival. The films in the festival will have screenings, followed by an interactive session with the director. Deepa Gahlot, head of Programming at NCPA says, the festival seeks to find new audiences for celebrated regional films.
"We are trying to give the Mumbai viewer a chance to watch films she would not normally have access to. The response has been overwhelming. We've had to increase the number of screenings to accommodate their enthusiasm."
Prateek Vats, a second year FTII student from New Delhi is a director to look out for. His first film Kal August 15th Dukan Bandh Rahegi, which runs for 11 minutes and has been awarded the 2011 National Award in the Best Short Fiction in the Non-Feature Film category, deals with the apparent insignificance of Independence Day for four students studying in the national capital. Shot in a span of three days, the film traces a day in a student dorm room and was shot entirely on FTII sets with college funding.
"The idea is not to deliver a message, but to draw a portrait of the situation in the country," says Vats who aspires to make 'realistic' films as an independent director. Manipuri filmmaker Oinam Doren will receive the National Award in the Best Ethnographic Film in the Non-Feature Film category in September for his film, Songs of Mashangva. Doren shot for a year and a half in Rajasthan, Kolkata, Nagaland, Shillong, Imphal and the villages in the Ukhrul district of Manipur and used 117 tapes.
"The idea for the project started when I was in college in Shillong and heard singer Rewben Mashangva's first album, Tantivy," he says. He was introduced to the album through a classmate, an Angami Naga girl. "It was rooted in Tangkhul Naga folk music and it touched me," explains Doren, who is in the city to promote his film.
He says, "It is sad that a lot of the rich culture of minority communities are dying." Doren hopes his film will have an impact on the younger generation who are easily awed by western influence.
Filming, of course, came with its fair share of difficulties. "The few masters of Tangkhul Naga folk songs who are alive live in remote villages in the hilly Ukhrul district. They don't have proper roads, phone lines or electricity. There are no books or recordings of the folk songs. So our recordings were the first attempt to preserve them," explains Doren.
But it wasn't only problems of logistics. Narrates Doren, "We had to persuade 90 year-old artist Ngazek to shave his head in the traditional 'haokuirat' style, which wasn't easy because his wife needed more convincing than him."
Doren tells us about one particular scene where for the film, a little boy had to pass through a cloudy mountain riding a buffalo. After hours of persuasion the crew managed to convince the child and his mother, but the next morning the buffalo was unwilling to acquiesce.
Film screenings will be held at 6.30 pm, August 12 at Little Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point.
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