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Will be honored by the country’s cinematographers association After gathering praise at the Toronto Film Festival for his English language feature film Before The Rains and his short Kannada film on AIDS called Prarambh, cinematographer /director Santosh Sivan now heads for Japan to be honoured by the Japanese Society Of Cinematographers on September 28 at Tokyo and on September 30 at Osaka. “I really can’t tell which honour I enjoy more — to be praised for my direction or cinematography,” says Sivan shyly. “But they’re screening two of my most contrasting works as a cinematographer, Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se and my own directorial venture Navarasa with Japanese subtitles. Can you believe it?” Going by the ovation that Santosh’s Before The Rains and Rituparno Ghosh’s The Last Lear received at Toronto, is the West more accepting of Bollywood removed from the song-and-dance? Santosh disagrees. “Out west, the so-called Bollywood formula has never been the sole trademark for Indian cinema, thanks to the films of Satyajit Ray and other masters from India who made an impact. But yes, they do like big Bollywood stars at the film festivals, similar to how they like their counterparts from Hollywood to walk the red carpet. Stars make good television visuals.”