Granada Sojourn
“Perder el Norte” (to lose one’s North) in Spanish means to lose one’s way, to become disoriented. This also means that the map has no meaning, you wander off from the usual route.
This according to me allows you to look at things in a new way, chart new courses and maybe look at the whole existence differently.
I had this feeling many a time after making Frozen. Traveling to distant lands taking the film and savoring the places, meeting new people and making new friends.
The trip to Granada for 2Cines del Sur film festival will be another one like that, so I thought. I had read many stories and seen enough films about Spain and knew about the cross-cultural ties with India that I didn’t feel that I have landed in a foreign land.
After the usual accreditation formalities and inquiring about Gael Garcia Bernal I got ready for the Flamenco performance partying the evening behind the beautiful Alhambra. By the way Gael was part of the festival with his first directorial film “Deficit” and his film was in competition with Frozen. Sadly I couldn’t meet him in person as he left the same day I landed in Granada.
The Flamenco performance was mind-boggling and it had similarities with Indian classical dance forms mainly Kathak and Bharatnatyam. Little bit of research gave me the knowledge that the Gypsies had traveled to Andalusia (southern part of Spain) in 1425 from the Northern part of India. The performances carried on till the wee hours of the morning but it was refreshing.
Next day while walking towards the main theatre we stumbled on to the poster of Frozen and Gauri (lead actress, Frozen) nearly had a heart attack seeing her poster on the street. It was a proud moment as ours was the only film from India in competition. We had a press conference on the 2nd day at 2 pm followed by lunch. The press screening at 12 pm was well attended. I could see that the reporters were itching to ask questions to Gauri and me.
That is always a good sign rather than people just telling you how beautiful the film was or just keeping quiet. The questions were very intelligent and not the why Black and White type usual questions. Most were to ask about the essence of Frozen and the idea behind that. And of course they were to deal with the popular cinema (bollywood) and why and how I wanted to do something different and things like the present status of Indian Cinema.
The press conference was long and we could have our lunch only at 4 o’clock. But I realized that it was usual as you could see bright Sun till around 8-9 pm. I loved another part of Spanish routine that was the Spanish Siesta. After experiencing a quick Siesta I got ready for the 1st screening of Frozen at Isabella Theatre.
The screening happened and it was a dream after that. We received 5 stars from the press the next morning and people started asking about the next screening.
We came to know that the 2nd screening was a full house and people had started talking about the Golden Alhambra (award for the Best Film) for Frozen. People started asking about the 3rd screening. I lost my sleep.
We quickly finished the visit to the Alhambra. A fort constructed by the Moors in the old part of the city. It was awesome and what was fascinating that the fort had a Muslim as well as the Christian influence.
As we were suppose to leave after 3 nights in Granada and the flight was from Malaga at 7 am we were suppose to check out from the hotel at 3am that night.
Then my phone rang around 6pm. It was the festival director and he told me that we couldn’t leave Granada till further notice. I knew we had hit the jackpot. I couldn’t sleep that night too. We had confirmed tickets and they cancelled everything so it must be pretty serious I thought.
Well the day of reckoning went like a breeze. People had started congratulating us. By 2 pm it got announced in the Jury press conference that Frozen got the Best Director (Silver Alhambra) and the Audience Award too. First thing I did was to ask for the calculator to convert the 30000 euros into Rupees. Yes, that was the cash award for the Best Director!!
Frozen was screened as the closing film of the festival at an open square in front of the Cathedral in the town. I got my 3rd screening. There was an Award function before that. The bonus was to receive the award from the hands of Mr. Mohsen Makmalbaf. I gave my thank you speech for the Audience Award in Spanish. At the end 400 or more people stood up clapping and I heard new words to say Congratulations.
At the end I would say that I really “lost my north”. But these are times when ones belief in whatever one is doing gets cemented. These are the times when you do want to make more of good cinema and not follow the sheep.
Granada is a beautiful place and I would really recommend people to see it. Granada gave us poetry and literature with Lorca, the music essence with Joe Strummer and Enrique Morente (each of them in their particular worlds of punk and flamenco respectively). It is seeped in history and culture and there is definitely something Indian.
I felt honoured that I could be a part of celebration of Cinema in this wonderful city.
Gracias Granada…
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
holy shit!!!
that was precisely my thgts after reading thru this boss..
u da boSS!!!
@DPac can you get to any editor and ask them to put the captions to the pics…thoda accha lagega yaar…
boss, captions not possible under the format which we use now. working on a better one. till then adjust pls.
oh theek hai…no problemos…
Shivajee,
Congratulations. Is this the first award in the festival circuit? hope this helps clinch ur european distribution deal. once again, congratulations.
@dabba bhai thank you.It is the 12th.We are also hoping about the deal.
Shivajee: Congratulations!! We hope you ‘lose your north’ more often in future
mubaraka mubarka…
i just consulted with my mother, who’s a professional numerologist. She did the numbers on your name and said that 12 is very good for you.
Congratulations!!! Must have been really a great journey – right from making the film to garnering all the accolades at various screenings!
Well done and all the best for the next venture and beyond!!
@dabba I will surely keep that in mind…thanks
Congrats Shivajee! When do we get to see ‘Frozen’ in India?
@Phoenixnu
@Subrat
@Arthi V
Thank you…Its been nearly 10 months now since the completion and each day is like a new road with its own trials, tribulations and triumphs.
@Arun Prakash,
I wish I had an answer for that. The distributers in India feel that no one will come to watch it here…in other words it will not work with the audience. That means people are not intelligent here or will be bored by it or they come only to see stars and not cinema that is being appreciated all over.I don’t have an answer my friend.
Shivajee, I get your POV.
I hope you keep the yardstick of commercial acceptability in mind in your next venture.
@Arun Prakash,
I hope I will.Thank you…
Awesome! Congratulations!!!Its really nice to see your efforts rewarded… not just the award, but the appreciation too.
.
I really loved the bit about you trying to convert the EUROS into RUPEES
Oyye sirjee..congrats once more..reading the post was quite fascinating…Has Gauri attended other screenings too? She must be elated as well..btw how old was she wen you shot the film?
Great photos as usual…
@Debashri,
Actually the calculations were already done,I was just reconfirming and hoping that this was not a dream :-)
@OM,
Thankyou boss. Gauri was nominated for best actress at Thessaliniki(Greece).She was at Rome too.Now she is nominated at Pacific Meridian Vladivostok Int FF(September).
She was 22 when we shot the film.
I will send you the link in Picasa for more pictures.
Yeah, got it
. It must have been a great feeling!
hey,
heard about you receiving the award few days back and here you are..congratulations and now please direct your indian audience towards the screening of your film somewhere..phat phish listening!!!
:-) I really don’t know when and where…
shivajee, this is fabulous yaar.. simply awesome. lage raho shivajee bhai.. lage raho! loving the pics!
@striker
Thank you…I appreciate…
Shivajee, Congraultations!!! This is a great achievement. Are you planning to release DVDs or on iTunes?
@Hemang Shah,
Thank you very much. Presently there is no plan to release the DVDs. We are in talks with various distributors to negotiate the different ways to release the film commercially.
Shivajee!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!! could you smell Indian Spices behind that cathedral??? they sold it on streets just like India.your post was a good trip back to that place. and Flamenco!! ahhh….
@Mitul
Yes…I had visited those narrow lanes,souk style. I came across a shop where the Arab owner told me I looked like an Indian friend of his…and when I went inside the shop I found hennna,basmati rice,spices and Ganesh Bidi!!!
Shivajee sir u hav done it again! mubarak ho!!! From Toronto to Spain, u hav travelled with ur dream – growing as a filmmaker with a sense. I was quite impressed by the rushes u had shown us on ur laptop at the Tom Abrams Script w/s. but frankly then, i never estimated the film to be so beautiful. Then when I finally saw the film at the festival in mumbai, i was speechless! the film slowly grows on ur mind & soul. Danny has given his one of the best performances. & Gauri is simply outstanding. She is very promising as an upcoming actress. Iam looking forward to see her performance in her next film.
But nevertheless the film belongs to the Director. U hav made us proud, very proud!!!
Just came across this in rediff:
http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/jul/21frozen.htm
SC’s film Froxen is making waves at various film fests across the globe..
Congrats SC!!!
@Arthi V
Thank you…Check this one…http://www.artzone.co.za/template_level2.asp?parentseq=4915