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Some
thought-provoking films were shown at the Mumbai documentary festival.
That the award winners deserved it augurs well for the event, reports Ervell
E. Menezes
THE best thing about the Mumbai International Films Festival (MIFF) for Documentary, Short and Animation Films is that what one sees during that week is enough to satiate and please one for over a year: the issues, the strife and the agitation that occur the world over. That the award-winners deserved it also augurs well for the festival. Among the winners are The Continuous Journey by Ali Kazimi which deals with a racial issue on a ship to the United Kingdom, AFSPA 1958 by Haobam Paban Kumar, a Manipur film on the nation-wide stir over the rape and murder of Manoama Devi by an Assam Rifles soldier, and The Black Road by William Neeson (Australia) which is about the Aceh tribes’ struggle for independence in Indonesia. Gaurave Jani’s Riding Solo to the Top of the World about an arduous journey from New Delhi to the Changthang Plateau in Ladakh was also among the winners. The chef guest, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, commended the Manipur film. "AFSPA 1958 helps the government understand the struggle of the Manipur people for better justice," he said. So MIFF 06 seems to have turned the corner after the bad image provided by its predecessor when a parallel festival or Vikalp was organised. Apart from AFSPA 1958 there were also other political films like Atul Gupta’s Waiting, a deeply moving account of the wives and children of men missing in Kashmir. The Printed Rainbow and Swoosh are among the animation films, which won awards. But there were also some thought-provoking films, which did not pick awards like the UK film My Brother My Enemy by Masood Khan and Kamaljeet Negi. The film deals candidly of the India-Pakistan relations as seen through a family separated by Partition and which had a chance of meeting because of cricket. And the Australian film Abortion, Corruption and Cops is about a doctor who fought the system to become a legendary figure. In Trafficked, it is an ex-cop who tries to get to the root of the flesh trade in Singapore. So, there is no dearth of issues and the films are as thought provoking as they are revealing. More than 2000 cinema buffs watched this seven-day event at the Ravindranath Natya Mandir on three screens and MIFF director Raghu Krishna said the average age was 25, which shows that cinema is reaching out to the youngsters who also figured among the prize-winners. Whether it was Between Midnight & Roosters Crow about the multinationals’ exploitation of the locals or Gone to a Good Home about the inhuman way in which unwed mothers had their babies virtually stolen from them in Brisbane or a whole lot of injustices, it is the documentary medium that is so powerful and takes up the cause of the common man who is today as dead as the proverbial dodo. And yet, an event of
this magnitude found very little space in the print and electronic
media. Sadly. |
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