As the Mumbai Film Festival reached the midway point on Sunday, it showed signs of maturity that was much expected of the event. Besides the usual film screenings, three events made the day for anyone who attended all or either one of these.
| | Filmmaker Zoya Akhtar speaks during a discussion involving India's women directors at the Mumbai Film Festival (Pics: Satyen K Bordoloi) |
The morning stage was expected to be both fiery and enlightened as the fantastic eight of India's emerging woman filmmakers shared the stage together. Moderated by journalist Nandini Ramanath, seated together were Sooni Taraporevala, Nandita Das, Zoya Akthar, Anusha Rizvi, Sona Jain, Bela Negi, Rajshree Ohja and Leena Yadav.
Zoya had the audience in splits when refusing to be embarrassed about having mood swings or crying on sets, she said, "On my sets I will cry if I want to. I will be in all my hormonal glory. As a man, you have chosen to be part of my set, so you handle it, boy."
Rajshree Ojha's comment that the other upside to making Aisha was that she got to check out clothes and shoes, drew many giggles from the audience, many of whom were women filmmakers themselves.
Different topics were discussed about women and cinema, sexism, difficulty of funding for women, stereotyping, control issues etc. What was most beautiful to see is that these 8 lovely women not only refused to be cowed down by anything, but proved themselves to be stronger and more intelligent than their male counterparts.
| | Sajid Khan looked a little peeved after the audience at a scriptwriting discussion ganged up against him for saying scripts are 'not important' | Their intelligence and sensitivity shone further in the afternoon in a session on the importance of scriptwriting. TV funnyman and Bollywood director Sajid Khan simply refused to accept that scripts are important. For him, stars make films succeed; story or script are secondary.
Anjum Rajabali proved to be the best moderator of the festival so far by not only asking questions but also vehemently involving himself in the discussions. He patiently tried to make Sajid Khan understand that, yes, stars were important, but without good stories, it did not matter how many stars or moons shone in a film. Sajid Khan, despite the protests from the audience that included many filmmakers, writers and producers, refused to budge from his position blatantly stating at one point that "I know what will work."
To that, Shama Zaidi retorted in an uncharacteristically 'polite' manner that the reason it 'works' is because we merely copy successful western films which Hollywood arrives at after much hard work. "Obviously there's 75% chance that it will work for Sajid even if he is a half-competent filmmaker. If it has worked in one language, chances are it will work in another," she reasoned.
One of the biggest draws of the evening was Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano's violent tour de force Outrage, a film that caused a lot of ripples at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. The screening was held at Chandan cinema, which was completely packed thanks to the buzz surrounding the film. However, while opinions remain divided (as with most of Kitano's films), there were a fair number of people who walked out, unable to bear the gruesome, visceral violence shown in his depiction of the downfall of a yakuza family.
The evening show at PVR, saw the screening of Dimensions Mumbai, one of the newer sections in the 12 year old festival, where 24 films made by Mumbaikars below the age of 25 were screened. Though many of them were clichd, a few showed promise.
The screen may have been grainy, the production may have been amateurish, the sound design may have been cacophonous at many places, what was right for most of the films, was that the filmmakers hearts were in the right place. Tackling societal, class and environmental issues, the filmmakers showed far more maturity and grasp of the reality of Mumbai than our delusional Bollywood filmmakers. Aamchi Mumbai's very own aspiring filmmakers thus rocked the screen. But for how long can these promising kids keep up this sensitivity and refuse to become a buyable commodity, would be the test that would prove their worth in history.
At the moment though, all does not seem to be lost for Indian cinema. -- With inputs from Suprateek Chatterjee |
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