11th Osian Cinefan Film Festival: Opening Ceremony
Sometimes life turns out to be rather very kind to you, very soon, and you’re fortunate to get what you’ve always wanted and wished. Cinema is a passion that I’ve unknowingly been living with for the past sixteen years, only to realise that I’m most comfortable with the cinematic expression, and the artistic form of cinema. I was never exposed to world cinema or anything, neither did we have film festivals in Delhi, and I always detested my city for not being Bombay.
But well, The 11th Osian Cinefan Film Festival is being held from the 24th October to the 30th October in Delhi, and it’s been two days that I’ve attended the festival, and only I know what I’ve been through, the two most exhilirating days of my life. Two days that have been the most educational, in terms of cinema, amazing, in terms of the people I met, and memorable, for the experience I had, and mind you, there are still 5 more days to go, and it’s going to get better and better.
Cut to: 5.30 p.m :Siri Fort Auditorium
I’m waiting endlessly for my father and my cousin to come, so that we can peacefully attend the opening ceremony of the festival, and I can see no sign of them. But I do see a simple man in white clothes walking right next to me, and I realise it’s none other than the living legend, Gulzar Saab. Now nobody needs an introduction on who he is. A man so simple yet so charming, a voice so soft yet so effective and an aura which is inexplainable. That’s Gulzar. Not even in my wildest dreams, did I ever think, that I would be talking away, and Gulzar Saab in his overwhelming humility, listening to me with utmost attention, and giving his warm charming smile as a reply to my nervous blabbering, and speaking up in his baritone voice to express what he wanted to. All I know is a part of my dream came true, and hopefully there will be a time when I will do something on my own merit, and earn the right to meet that man. Well, more about him and his brilliant Masterclass on Film Lyrics that I attended in my next post.
Cut to: 6.30 p.m: Siri Fort 1
For the first time in my life, I saw cinema being celebrated. I know it’s happened before, but Osian is more than just screening the best of movies. It is an educational experience, to explain the history of cinema, how every movie was derived, how music in our movies originated, how the forgotten stalwarts are so eminent and important to our cinema and now Osian has also launched Osian Learning Experience. Osian’s-Cinefan Film Festival has realised its true objective of disseminating art knowledge by merging with Osian’s radically original educational initiative. Q&A sessions, lectures, panel discussions and seminars to ensure connection and a deeper understanding of each film screened will give an insight into OLE. The approach has been intensive and an in depth analysis and scrutiny of selected films is taking place. Having attended Vishal Bharadwaj’s session on Kaminey, alongside the legendary Gulzar Saab, the shy Amole Gupte, the enigmatic Chandan Roy Sanyal and the ever so talented, Production Designer Sameer Chandra. As the chief guest, Chief Minister Sheila Dixit said
“ We lost our International Film Festival to Goa. But I’m happy that we can concentrate on Osian”
Osian is Neville Tuli’s initiative, and Cinefan is Aruna Vasudev’s creation, and merging cinema with other forms of art, like debates, paintings, photography and sculpture art is a beautiful initiative.
Newstream Sessions
NewStream session at the 11th Osian’s is envisioned as a twofold event which will comprise of conversations with filmmakers, with their actors and technicians as also interactions with the audience and screening of their latest work under discussion. The filmmakers and their films of Indian origin will find voice on
NewStream platform because they have both earned a sympathetic audience in the traditional exhibition space for mainstream cinema and broken new cinematographic ground for the Indian film industry.
‘ Inn galiyon se jab main aaya, toh maine ek choti si ladki ne mujhe antique posters ke saath, ek still dikhaya, jisse mujhe yaad aaya, ki bahut saal pehle, iss film Bandini ke set pe issi scene pe maine taali bajayi thi’- Gulzar Saab
The exhibition showcasing antique posters ranging from unheard films like Daku starring Shammi Kapoor to classics like Pyaasa, it took us on a memorable journey, as to how far our cinema has come, and how it’s our responsibility to take this legacy forward.
‘ Hum waakayi bahut door aa gaye hain’- Gulzar Saab
As Sheila Dixit lit the candle, and Gulzar Saab received the Lifetime Achievement Award, the opening ceremony came to an end, still etched in my mind, even as the spokesperson pronounced Gulzar Saab’s name wrong, he just smiled and said
“Kitni Khoobsurat Galti thi”
OLE will bring together a thousand hours of learning and teaching modules on all aspects of art, cinema, popular culture and cultural management, put together by a pioneering team of experts with a decade of leadership experience in these subjects. The aim of the courses will be to cater to students with diverse needs and aspirations – from basic knowledge to professional proficiency to scholarly research and
international publication requirements. The structure of the courses will be flexible enough to sustain continuous expansion, making OLE ever more comprehensive as well as customized to the requirements of individual expectations. The courses will cater to the young and brilliant aspiring students as much to the
banking professionals dealing with HNIs and to the media professionals and the diplomats and their families wishing to understand deeper the Indian arts, cinema and culture to the lay public aspiring to enter these worlds with confidence. Courses will cost in the range of INR 10,000 to 100,000 depending on the depth and time studied. Scholarships will be available from day one.
The Opening Ceremony would have been incomplete without the gracious Rekha Bharadwaj’s intoxicating voice, and how she sang Gulzar Saab’s songs so beautifully, almost leaving everyone in awe.
Unfortunately, everything good has to come to an end, but that’s no reason not to enjoy the moment, and I indeed had the best experience of my life.
Tags: 11 Osian Cinefan Film Festival, Aruna Vasudev, film festival, gulzar, Neville Tuli, osian, Sheila Dixit, Vishal Bhardwaj
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Sounds awesome, I so wanted to visit today, but couldn’t. Tomorrow they have Anurag Kashyap panel.. I can not afford to miss it!
Enjoyed reading it, Jehan! Looking forward to what the days from here has in store!
write about OLE sessions.
dil maange more… keep it comin’
Good one! Do write more.
Jehan, I am particularly interested in that antique posters bit. Could you elaborate more on it?
Thanks for sharing Jehan…I being in Delhi could’nt catch 11th osian due to overload of work but will try my level best to reach siri fort on 27 or may be on 28… dekhte hain…
Please provide more information about OLE…
Jehan- great to know you are getting to be in the thick of action & bring it to our notice as well.I hate to nitpick here but only wish to point out to something you mentioned early on in the post- ” neither did we have film festivals in Delhi” I would disagree with that.My earliest exposure to World Cinema ( of course those days I didnt realise the respect I would have for it later on ) and film festivals happpened in Delhi.Siri Fort Auditorium for me was the best thing about Delhi
please continue sharing your experiences at the fest.
What he said about an artist need for appreciation and “Hum waakayi bahut door aa gaye hain” humbled me. Very inspiring. Listening to him live was also a very nice experience.
Along with that I also liked what Neville(much relaxed this time) said about how easily we blame the outside world for the changes that are happening around the globe and how the source of the changes may be deep rooted in the society that we are becoming and the importance to look at the thing in a new way, to unlearn, the role of art in leading to that introspection where we look within. That also being the theme of the festival, I could relate it with the opening film, HOOKED(Romania) and BROTHERS(Israel). Both making me think about my own short-comings when it comes to relationships and my personal opinions about things and how they can be so frickle and biased/baseless and easily left to be manipulated by other individuals/media etc.
sorry for being a little off-topic but which film will PFCites recommend me for the Mumbai Film Fest…here’s the list
http://mumbaifilmfest.com/screening_schedule.php
lovely write-up
Good job Jehan…loved it…
The Osian film festival is featuring New stream film makers every afternoon at 3.30 pm under the Osians learning experience( OLE). This is a two hour interactive session in which the audience also gets to ask questions.
Yesterdays session featured Anurag Kashyap and the cast of Dev D( Jehan, is a post on the way?).
Today’s session(27th Oct) has Zoya Akhtar accompanied by Farhan Akhtar and Rishi Kapoor. It’s Imtiaz Ali on the 28th, Raj Kumar Gupta on the 29th and Dibakar Banerjee on the 30th.
There’s a lot you can learn from these film makers. If you can attend, do so. Take the afternoon off from work
wow that’s a formidable line-up…will give our batting order inferiority complex…ne such forums at MIFF???
Thanks alot Guys. Will try to post more as soon as I can. Unfortunately, I wish I could take notes, it would have been easier, but well
awesome Jehan..
your writing is vivid, it painted pictures for me that i didn’t see from naked eyes. Thanks for the experience..
Have fun and keep sharing.
I really appreciate your writing about your excitement at finding your way to the festival — your gratitude, if that’s the right word, mirrors the way I also feel about events like this — to have the chance to see films and hear from people, right there in person, who’ve worked on them and/or thought and written about them, I am also almost always still struck by how lucky I am to live in a time and place where I can have this experience.
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Don’t want to go on about myself, will just say – living in NY – my own comparable “I can’t believe this is true!” was finding that the filmmakers from India whose work I watched at first mostly alone (no South Asian friends or Indian film fan friends back then) actually came here, so far away, and I could see them.