The Director General of the just concluded 11th Osian?s Cinefan Film Festival, Mani Kaul, is a veteran film director. A graduate from the Film and Television Institute of India, he has made a number of films, including the acclaimed Uski Roti (1970), Ashad Ka Ek Din (1971), Duvidha (1973), Idiot (1992) and Siddheshwari (1989) for which Kaul received the National Film Award for Best Documentary Film in 1989. On the closing day of the festival, Arunima Mishracaught up with Kaul to get his perception of the festival and future plans for Cinefan.
How was the response to the festival?
I was a little apprehensive as I thought the changed time from July to October has brought us into a competition with many other cultural activities at the same time. But many people enjoyed the screening and the Osian?s Learning Experience.
Many film aficionados possibly stayed away this year due to change in the ticketing format. Do you plan to review this?
If we had our way the festival would have been a free event. There are certain procedural constraints that made us charge the registration fee of Rs 300. But that fee gives you a catalogue of Rs 650 and free admission to all film shows during the entire festival. Seriously, you do not imagine that fee to be a source of any revenue for our festival. We earn next to nothing from ticketing or from the festival itself. It is an event dedicated to the service and education of film enthusiasts from across the world, and particularly, for the emerging Delhi audience, young and old.
There were too many overlapping events such as the OLE session, film screening. Was that intentional?
I think that notion of a film festival to just watch films?is somewhat dated. Today is a world where you can see films on DVDs or on the TV. Then why do you want to go to a film festival? The basic difference between screening a film at a festival and watching it at a home theatre is?at a film festival, you get to meet and interact with the directors. Consider this. In the 50s, all the great directors such as Ritwik Ghatak and Satyajit Ray etc saw world cinema only at a film festival, as there wasn?t any other form to access world movies.
Are the mainstream film-makers beginning to reflect Indian realities?
Each of the NewStream sessions that hosted new film-makers lasted for two hours and there was an average attendance of between 500 and 700 people listening and participating in the discussion. The audience is deeply interested in the changing mainstream of Indian film industry precisely because it has begun to not just reflect modern realities of an emerging India but has found new cinematic idioms that project the future aspirations of our people. It is a development that will profoundly influence all departments of filmmaking.
Are you planning to carry forward any learnings from this year?
We will do much more innovations the coming year. This time, there was very little time and too many schedules. We have decided to book the venue for next year. It?s again going to be in October for 12-13 days. We would want to get more films.
This time there were no premieres at the film festival. Please comment.
There is a rat race for premieres, rather world premieres, amongst all international film festivals. A film once premiered at a festival, turns stale for all other major film festivals. If the film has been shown at two or three festivals no important festival will touch that work with a barge pole. This ridiculous situation is a result of treating films as commodities floating in the market, a sheer disrespect for true cinema. Above all, a film (or any piece of great art) is forever. If it is not, it is not worth showing! But we are glad that at least four big filmmakers want to premiere their films after their experience of the ambience at Osian?s Cinefan.