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MIFF: A curtain raiser |
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By: Deepa Gahlot |
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Date:
2010-02-03 |
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Place: Mumbai |
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It is unfortunate that Films Division has come to be associated with boring documentaries and newsreels that you were forced to watch in the cinema before feature films, but for many years, FD kept the documentary movement alive, and in the midst of droning voiceovers that usually marked the documentary, there are thousands of gems.
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Rex Vs Singh |
The video revolution happened, and anyone who could hold a camera became a documentary filmmaker. FD gave this small but thriving community a boost by instituting a festival in 1990 -- the Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films -- MIFF, for short.
Hardly anybody believed that a Festival run by a government-aided organisation could be well managed. There are the usual glitches -- and that was a controversy-filled year when, protesting against censorship, a group of filmmakers withdrew their films from MIFF and ran a parallel festival called Vikalp down the road from the main venue. Then there was that year when the Director's personal life threw up a media- pleasing scandal.
In terms of glamour, the documentary film may be a "poor cousin" of Bollywood cinema, but it has loyal followers and its own star system. And MIFF, held every two years has grown to become an important Festival of its kind.
When the first edition of MIFF (then BIFF) was announced, the then Festival Director Vijay B Chandra had written, "India is one of the largest documentary film producing countries of the world. While Indian documentary filmmakers were winning awards and were being invited to be on the Jury of International Film Festivals, we had to wait for more than 40 years to organise an international film festival exclusively.
For this very first festival, we have received a remarkable number of entries -- over 600 films from 40 countries.
In 1990, a sum of Rs 7.5 lakh had been earmarked for prize money along with the Golden and Silver Conch trophies. At that time, the sum was the highest in the world, next only to that of Japan, for short films. Now the sum is a very generous Rs 22.5 lakh.
This year, the 11th Mumbai International Film Festival (February 3-9 at the NCPA Complex) will screen 200 short films and documentaries from 40 countries (800 were entered). In keeping with the times, new sections on student films and mobile films have been introduced. Along with the Competition and Information films, there are packages of films on science fiction, environment, climate change plus the many retrospectives and special packages.
Some of the films to look out for: Rex Vs Singh by Ali Kazimi-Richard Fung/John Greyson, Songs, Colours & Market by Joshy Joseph, An Unending Expanse by Gautam Bora, Children of the Pyre by Rajesh S Jala, Anwar Jamal's Anwar : Dream of A Dark Night, Vikrant Pawar's The Watch Clinic, Umesh Kulkarni's The Spell and Gaurav Jani's One Crazy Ride and many, many more.
-- Deepa Gahlot
(Watch this space for updates) |
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