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There are five Indian films in one of the sections of Cannes this time, after all. All in the Short Film Corner section, which is one of the side-bar sections of the festival.

This, apart from Vijay Anand’s Guide which is being screened in the Classic section.

The five films, to be screened in the Short Film Corner section. are Hum Panchhi Ek Daal Ke (Of Haves and Havenots, 9 mins) in the Experimental Documentary sub-section, written & directed by Manoj Srivastava (currently a deputy director with the Directorate of Film Festivals in New Delhi), In the Land of the Nagas (30:05 mins) in the Documentary sub-setion, directed by Jaishankar Singh, Akela (Alone, 7:13 mins) in the experimental fiction sub-section (It’s an India-France-Singapore co-production), directed by Alka Mehta, Retirement (5:30 mins) by Tushar Joshi, and Viva Sunita! (3:45 mins) by Amitabh Sinha and Lolita Sarkar, in the fiction sub-section.

The Cannes …

The film society movement in India has a glorious history, but it had gone into a slumber for quite some time before the DVD revolution happened, making it possible for film societies in far-flung areas to get films for screenings easily. It is the film society movement through which many cine lovers got their first taste of cinema from other languages.

I know for myself. It was in 1993 that I first got to watch a Mani Rathnam film – Roja, the original Tamil version and not the dubbed Hindi version that became a rage a few months later – at a festival of films in various Indian languages (I think the Indian Panorama package) organized by the Assam Cine Art Society in Guwahati. In those days when DVDs had not yet invented, and video cassettes at the local library only gave access to Hindi and English films, such festivals …

It’s Cannes time again. And it is time for some of our filmmakers to go and screen their films in the “market”, on space and time bought against hefty sums, outside the festival’s official sections, and then come back and claim through their PR companies – and the ‘anything goes’ media is only too happy to reproduce these claims – that their films have been “screened at Cannes”. (Closer home: would anyone claim that his or her film has been screened at IFFI if it is screened at the market section? The glamour of Cannes is to blame, I guess!)

It is these claims that prompted me to go to the Cannes website archive two years ago, and prepare an exhaustive list of all Indian films screened (in any official section) in Cannes since its first edition. Here it goes – in alphabetical order, and updating for 2007 & 2008 …

Supriyo Sen is someone whose name is familiar to only die-hard documentary lovers in India. But make no mistake – he is one young filmmaker in India whom we will hear a lot more about in the years to come. Let’s get introduced to him here on PFC:

Sen’s can be expected to be an oft-heard name in next year’s Berlin International Film Festival. His project Wagah, which will seek to interpret the ritual of every evening’s closure of the gates on the India-Pakistan border crossing in a larger context, has been selected by the festival as one of the five concepts selected from 180 entries from across the world for cinematic celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Kolkata-based Sen’s film, to be shot in the second half of 2008, will be premiered under the special section called My Wall at the festival next year, …

The FICCI-PricewaterhouseCoopers 2008 report on the Indian Entertainment and Media Industry is being released on March 25 in Mumbai during FICCI-Frames, but some highlights of the report makes interesting reading in so far as showing the fast growth – in monetary terms – of the industry.

It says that the Indian entertainment & media sector has now become a Rs 51,300 crore industry, and is projected to achieve a massive size of Rs 1,15,700 crore by 2012. But the interesting fact – though not unknown to industry people - is that bulk of this growth has come not from the film sector.

The growth in 2007 over 2006 itself was a respectable 16 per cent, and in absolute terms, it was up by Rs 7,500 crore over the 2006 figure of Rs 43,800 crore. The growth was driven to a great extent by the foreign investments in the sector, which in 2007 …

Hi friends. The following info I received on my mail could be useful
to many among us. The more short film fests, the merrier! —-:)

We take great pleasure in inviting your participation in FulMarxx
Shorts Fest. Here is a once in a lifetime opportunity for you to
showcase your talent and grab the lime light in the largest short film
festival India has ever witnessed.

Call for Entries: India ’s largest Short Film Festival
FulMarxx Shorts Fest

India’s Largest Short Film Festival, 26-27 April 2008, Ahmedabad

Submissions open till March 25,2008

Festival competition is in 4 categories:

1. Micro Shorts: run time upto 10 minutes.

2. Mini Shorts: run time upto 20 minutes.

3. Long Shorts: run time upto 30 minutes.

4. Full Shorts: run time upto 45 minutes.

We accept films in all languages. For films in languages other than
Hindi, English and Hinglish …

For sometime now, Indian films are having regular commercial releases in Pakistan – as far as I understand, on a case-by-case consideration. And after the initial euphoria of at last getting to watch Indian films legally on the big screen after all these years of watching grainy, pirated DVDs, the Pakistanis, I am told by some of my Pakistani friends from the film world, are starting to treat Indian films with the respect or contempt that they deserve.

But all this time, there had not been a reciprocal release of Pakistani films commercially in India, barring the limited release of the Pakistani-French-German co-production Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters) directed by Sabiha Sumar. Come March 28, things will finally change. That is the day when Shoaib Mansoor’s Khuda Kay Liye (In the Name of God) – a huge hit in Pakistan – is releasing in India. And there could not have been a …

54. That is the number of films that I and two of my co-jury members watched in just five days at the 10th Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short & Animation films (MIFF). The festival was held over seven days, from February 3 to 9, but the films in the Indian competition section (in which I served on the critics jury chosen by the Indian chapter of the International Federation of Film Critics – FIPRESCI - along with Uma da Cunha from Mumbai and M K Raghabendra from Bangalore) were screened from the 4th to the 8th. Of these 40 were documentaries, nine short fiction films and five animation films. We had a tough task at hand, since we were mandated to give out only one award – I personally felt it was a great injustice to the films as we had to select the winner from among three …

I am going to do something not usually done - and I am not sure if the rules of the group allow this. But still, I am taking the liberty - of posting another person’s thoughts. That person is Brijesh Kalappa, a friend and an advocate practising in the Supreme Court of India. He wrote this personal mail to me and a few other friends after watching his son post-Taare Zameen Par-viewing. I thought it makes interesting reading, and hence sharing it with all friends here. Here’s what Brijesh wrote in his mail:

My son usually returns from school about lunchtime and like most children his age baulks at the idea of a siesta. If not for a nap post-lunch, he invariably dozes by 9 pm. About a fortnight ago, my wife and I had made reservations to see this movie, which everybody seemed to be speaking about- Taare Zameen …

Seems times are changing at last - for the better, and fast. After all these years of scouring the film festivals and pirated DVD shops (unless we have deep pockets to splurge on the highly-priced original DVDs of foreign films), it seems 2008 is bringing some happy tidings for us, the lovers of world cinema (that is, anything that comes from outside the country minus Hollywood).

Suddenly, Indian companies have started taking marketing rights for a large number of world cinema and at least two dedicated channels to telecast cinema of that kind are readying for launch. And, trust the French to do it - more and more French films are being screened, at least in Delhi and Mumbai, screened mostly free of cost through tie ups with multiplex chains, to introduce the casual moviegoer to the variety that rides with their cinema (hope other countries would also have as …

This surely marks a high in the Indian film festival circuit! According to an announcemnt today, Osian’s-Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema will give away over Rs 1 Crore (approx. USD 250, 000) in Prize Money for its Competition Sections and Lifetime Achievement Awards.

The festival will celebrate its 10th Anniversary in New Delhi from 10-20 July, with its Mumbai Preview preceding in June 2008.

While the Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Cinema was introduced in the 6th Osian’s-Cinefan in 2004, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Contribution to Cinema will be introduced this year, and Rs 6 lakh (approx. USD 15,000) will be presented for each category.

The Best Films in the Asian-Arab and Indian Competition sections will be awarded Rs 20 lakh each (USD 50,000) and the Best Director in each section will win Rs 8 lakh (USD 20,000).

The Special Jury Award and the Best Actor …

It was the alluring cover that first attracts the attention – of a young monk dressed in ochre robes with his back to the camera and a football balanced on his round, bald head. The mood of the photograph is overwhelmingly orange, with some yellow – it looks like early morning time, and the monk is standing at the edge of a mountain, with three pagodas struggling to appear from behind the fog. The photograph is from the poster of Bhutan’s first full-length feature film, Phorpa (The Cup), made in 1999 by director Khyentse Norbu, himself a Buddhist monk. When I was walking into the theatre in one of the film festivals in in Delhi around 2000-2001, with the info about the director being a monk, the expectation was to get to see something on the screen that would be heavy on philosophy. His next film, Travellers and Magicians, a …

Prroshant Narayannan - hey you, this new spelling of your name really confuses me about where to put the extra ‘r’ and ‘n’ everytime I start punching it in - the ‘Badmash Banna’ on PFC, is up to a lot of things. He wrote about it sometime back, but since then has been silent. Wake up man. Here’s a provocation -the full text of an interview I did with him for an article in my paper (you can read it at : http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Dec162007/enter2007121541396.asp). So, here it goes, the unabridged version:

What are your roles in Bombil and Beatrice and Mr Singh / Mrs Mehta?

Bombil is a hit man in the year 2005. In his last birth he used to be a horse dealer, Vilas Godbole,in Matheran, where he meets a young girl, Beatrice, and falls in love and they promise to wait for each other even for a 100 …

“Zafar made many films after that, but Khoya Khoya Chand is considered his best…”. May not be the exact words, as I did not note it down, but something more or less along these lines lit up the screen as an epilogue as Khoya Khoya Chand came to an end. I was at a Press screening of Sudhir’s latest film at New Delhi’s Films Division Auditorium this (Thursday, Dec 6) afternoon, a few hours before there were to be two Red Carpet premieres of the film at PVR Plaza and PVR Rivoli at Connaught Place. And I thought, the word “Zafar” could be replaced with “Sudhir Mishra”. Ok, ok, if not his best, it would be counted among his best – up there with Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi.

Sudhir, quite evidently backed to the hilt by producer Prakash Jha, invested a lot of sweat, pain and hard work in creating this …

This Unni could have been named Murali. And why not, as Murali Nair – the one who had debuted with a Cannes Camera d’Or-winning Marana Simhasanam (The Death’s Throne) in 1999 – draws from his own childhood to come up with this delectable mix of innocent storytelling and subtle comments on the societal prejudices as seen through a child’s eyes.

Yes, Nair makes it more tantalizing by telling his audiences - as he did following a screening of his latest film at the 29th Festival of 3 Continents film festival in Nantes in France to an audience comprising yours truly as one of the minority adults amidst a gaggle of highly-curious French school children who seemed overawed after viewing this tale set in rural Kerala – that yes, there are autobiographical elements in his film, but they come with a generous doze of fictional elements. “Which one of the kids …

Hi PFCians. Can you please help me resolve this dilemma? I am often left wondering - What is a ‘crossover’ film? This came to my mind recently, when “Loins of Punjab” got released and many reviews described it as a ‘crossover’ film.

If we go by the commonly-held perception (created by the media that is ever-eager to create a label), a crossover film usually will be one (or mix of more than one) of the following:

1. Its characters speak in ‘Hinglish’ (maybe with a smattering of a regional language).
2. It’s made by an NRI director, with Indian/NRI/mixed caste.
3. It portrays stories of the NRI community.
4. It’s an NRI/Indian film in English.
5. It’s low-budget (big budget films by big names of Bollywood, even if set completely abroad, would never call themselves a crossover film).
6. It’s a low-budget English film made by some foreigner (sometimes by some Desi too) with a part-Desi part-Firangi cast, and shot partly in India

But …

The Indian Panorama for the 38th IFFI (Goa, Nov 23-Dec 3) has been just announced.

Lenin Rajendran’s “Ratri Mazha” (Night Rain) in Malayalam and Samir Chanda’s “Ek Nadir Galpo” (Story of a River) will represent India in the Asian-African-Latin American Competition section. The Panorama section will open with another Malayalam film, Shyamaprasad’s “Ore Kadal”.

The other films in Indian Panorama are B S Lingadevaru’s “Kada Beladingalu”, P R Ramdas Naidu’s “Moggina Jade” K Shivarudraiah’s “Daatu” (all Kannada), Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s “Naalu Pennungal”, Renjith’s “Kayyoppu”,
Babu Thiruvalla’s “Thaniye” (all Malayalam), Bhavna Talwar’s “Dharm”, Sameer Hanchate’s “Gafla” (both Hindi), Sanib Sabhapandit’s “Jaatingaa Ityadi” (Assamese), Mangesh Hadawale’s “Tingya”, Gajendra Ahire’s “Maai Baap”, Bipin Nadkarni’s “Aevdhe Se Aabhaal” and Vishal Bhandari’s “Kaalchakra” (all Marathi), Gnana Rajasekaran’s “Periyar” and Padma Magan’s “Ammuvagiya Naan” (both Tamil), Anjan Das’ “Jaara Brishtite Bhijechilo”, Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s “Ami, Yasin Aar Amaar Madhubala” (both Bengali), Makhonmani Mongsaba’s “Yenning Amadi Likia” (Manipuri).

The jury was headed by veteran …

Laaga Chunari Mein Daag (dir Pradeep Sarkar) is an ‘inspirational’ work. That is what is being said in some sections of the media and the Net.

Here are 4 films which have similar story backgrounds. Decide for yourself.

1. Doghi (Sisters) Marathi (1995)

Dir: Sumitra Bhave & Sunil Sukhtankar; Cast: Renuka Daftardar, Sonali Kulkarni, Uttara Baokar, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Suryakant Mandre.

Synopsis: The story of two sisters, Gauri and Krishna, two ordinary middle-class girl in a village who, as their fate would have it, fall into different circumstances in life. After her husband’s fatal accident, Gauri comes to her poor brother in Bombay only to end up as a sex worker. Her sister, Krishna tries to help her in vain. A social drama with human pathos lifted by superb performances from the main cast.
It went to a lot of international film festivals and won some awards too, including Torino (Italy) where it …

I know I am pretty late in catching up with this film, but I finally watched Chak De! India A lot have been written about it on passionforcinema and elsewhere, but still I would add my two bits here, particularly as I think it’s rare to get a film coming from the mainstream framework to have so much layering that is done commendably well. So here goes my take, point by point:

1. Though SRK has said in an interview that he acted just exactly as he does in any other movie, I think Swades and Chak De are the only two films where he chose to go into the character, rising above the Rahul/Raj image. Particularly in the scene towards the end of the movie when it slowly sinks into Kabir Khan that his girls have done it and the ghost chasing him all the years has been exorcised, SRK …

Pickle, an online journal on the entertainment industry, believed to be backed by one industry body, has reported that the Film Federation of India (FFI) has started the process to select the Indian entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar in the 80th Academy Award.

It says that a cross section of industry experts and critics contacted by it “squared in on” Feroz Abbas Khan’s Gandhi My Father (Hindi), Ameer Sultan’s Paruthiveeran (Tamil) and Maniratnam’s Guru (Hindi) as their favourite choice for nomination from India for the Oscars.

Some of the other films that are in the “radar of Oscar watchers” are Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Eklavya (Hindi), Shanker’s Sivaji (Tamil), Radhamohan’s Mozhi (Tamil) and Rosshan Andrews’ Notebook (Malayalam), it claims. But it adds the rider, “Analysts appreciated the films listed in this para but were not confident to bet on any of these movies.”

According to Pickle, Gandhi My Father and …