SIGHT & SOUND
IFFI is Mumbai fillum fiesta
Amita Malik

India’s international film festivals have been sliding downhill for so long that at times nobody notices or cares. But one only had to watch the media coverage of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa this year to realise all the things wrong with it.

The biggest disadvantage of Goa being the venue is that it is so close to Mumbai. As a result the festival has not only ceased to be international, it is not even national. It is a Mumbai fillum fiesta, period. From the day the festival was announced the speculation started whether Shahrukh Khan would be there.

In the event, the opening was marred by the festival’s second most glaring defeat, the surfeit of ministers, governors, bureaucrats on the stage, all making boring speeches. They were outnumbered only by Mumbai’s film people.

There was one Bengali and one South Indian film person on the stage but since no one mentioned them, one got to know only afterwards. There was not one foreigner on the stage and not one could be spotted in the audience.

It is only when the jury appeared much later on the stage, that one saw an international touch. But something went wrong technically and they stood smiling and shaking hands with each other and there was no one to introduce or look after them.

The media followed suit, since most young reporters know their Mumbai stars and their private lives and only after four days someone thought of interviewing Australian director Mary Campion. The cameras caught, to our distress, the frustrated cinema buffs and journalists struggling to get in because 5,000 passes had been issued when there were only 1,500 seats.

No wonder then in Headlines Today, well-known director M.S. Sathyu, who made Garam Hawa, was described as Vijay Singh in its caption. Meanwhile the words of wisdom from Mumbai starlets, most of whom had never attended an international film festival abroad, went on merrily.

It is time our young reporters boned up on international cinema and interviewed more foreign delegates than Indian (read Mumbai) starlets and got beyond reading from the publicity notes about foreign films to speaking knowledgably about international cinema.

Even when it comes to Mumbai, one reporter from a top English channel announced last year that there were retrospectives of three persons who had died — Ismail Merchant, Sunil Dutt and Hrishikesh Mukherji. Poor Hrishida was only ill and had not passed away. Shame on the reporter.

Meanwhile, the dramas and melodramas last week have certainly kept reporters on their toes. There is the Katara case, with key figures Bharti Yadav and Neelam Katara getting top billing.

Bharti’s elusiveness might have been newsworthy but everyone has noticed the dignity and compassion with which Neelam Katara, the victim’s mother, has conducted herself, especially vis-a-vis Bharti Yadav, the coy witness torn between her brother and lover. Not to forget Greg Chappell and the MPs.

There is a theory that while Steve Waugh might be the civilised Australian but Guru Greg is a colonial at heart who belongs to the same tribe as those Australians who made racist remarks against Monty Panesar of the English team for the Ashes.

In any case, Chappell seems to have money on his mind about Indians. First, he made himself a laughing stock of himself by saying Sourav Ganguly needed the money after he was excluded from the team when everyone knows that Sourav’s family and his wife’s are amongst the most affluent in Kolkata.

Now, he says MPs are "paid" to make comments. Are MPs not "paid" in Australia? Chappell has not only missed out on coaching but also on the bad taste with which he reads India.

Tailpiece: Not all of us like our favourite programmes getting cluttered up with ads at the wrong moment. But there is one ad I have liked so much that I sit back and enjoy it every time.

This is about finance for truck drivers by Sriram’s. It has the lovely song Musafir, beautifully rendered and accompanied by the most touching visuals of the person and professional lives led by our intrepid truck drivers.