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Zoom In on IFFI
Kaveere Bamzai
It says a lot for the way the International Film Festival of India movies have been promoted that the public screening of Rakhshan Bani-Etemad's 1989 classic, Canary Yellow, at Chanakya had precisely 50 viewers, of whom only five had bought tickets. Even accounting for the fact that the focus on the courageous 44-year-old Iranian woman director was playing at Siri Fort later, the lack of interest in the film that combines humour with pathos, was disappointing. Nargess, made in 1992, and screened on Thursday, was better attended, but then that's because the crowd comprised press and delegates.If there are complaints about sub-titling by the National Film Development Corporation, someone should look into the English interpretation of Iranian film dialogue. Both Nargess and Canary Yellow had the most amazing variations on the English language. Punctuation was a particular problem, with the full stop popping up at points it was not meant to. Spellings were a complete disaster.
And yet these movies have done well internationally and have little trouble being picked up by global distributors.One independent distributor that has become truly global is Miramax. Its production, The Wings of the Dove, screened on Friday, drew quite a few people and deservedly so -- no, we're not talking of Helena Bonham Carter's celebrated nude scene, which comes right at the end. The film has established Henry James's reputation as Hollywood's hottest screen writer, though belatedly. Last year saw two other less successful adaptations of Portrait of a Lady and Washington Square. Directed by Lain Softley, The Wings of the Dove is beautifully set and shot in London and Venice. It's the usual Jamesian riff. American meets worldly English and travels to the corrupt continent. Milly, played by Allison Elliot, is the American who falls in love with both Kate, played by Bonham Carter, and Martin, played by Linus Roache The screenplay has been adapted by Hossein Amini and the
film is edited by Tariq Anwar -- invasion of the Asians, or what? Even amidst talk of cinema, television dominated. On Thursday, the Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) was thrown into a tizzy because Prasar Bharati CEO S S Gill reportedly called up Director Malti Sahai, threatening to ``boycott'' the festival on Doordarshan if passes were not issued to his officials. Later in the afternoon, a Doordarshan Deputy Director-General phoned to say that CPC facilities to facilitate transfer of tape would not be extended to DFF -- the matter, thankfully, was sorted out by the evening.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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