|
The over riding memory is of
dust. The dust kicked up by thousands of feet. Thousands
feet traversing miles of the venue over and over each day.
Frankly, till now I had only read and imagined anything like
this. This was an experience, unforgettable, unavoidable,
and in my face. Then the sounds. Languages, drums, slogans
and speech vied together for attention. And yet the result
was not cacophony but something else altogether. And then
the people. Over 100,000 of us from all corners of the
world. And then the colours. Every hue and shade was
represented in the clothes, in the posters that lined each
possible space, in the banners and the flags, in the
installations, in the different stages (7 in all). And then
the activities. Over 1200 seminars, 800 workshops,
plenaries, continuous demonstrations, opening and closing
events, installations, stalls for selling books, posters,
food, exhibitions and plays. Nearly 3000 participating
artists came. Art was visible, art was political and high
art and street art mingled freely with
unashamed
enthusiasm to create a
different kind of WSF experience. Many commented that the
WSF in India had put culture on the agenda
itself.
|
|
|
Preparing
for the WSF Film Festival
Prior to the film festival
we had carried out two related activities. First, we had
curated a travelling film festival package that aimed to
tour the country and mobilise support for the WSF and its
agenda. The films were curated thematically, based on the
five main themes of the WSF: Imperialist globalisation,
Militarism and peace, Communalism, Casteism and Racism and
patriarchy. The details of these films, with synopsis,
is attached.
As we did this work in less than a month we culled from the
most easily accessible and available material. So we relied
on films we knew and had seen. Most films were Indian or
from South Asia. Only one film was from Australia, but its
subject too was India. Called Diverted to Delhi the film
portrayed the scenario of mushrooming call centres in India
and searched for the international financial angle into
that.
Due to paucity of time we decided to make several sets of
the Travelling Film Festival Package so that they could
travel simultaneously. All film makers participated quite
enthusiastically and gave 5 copies of their film at very,
very nominal price for this endeavour.
The Travelling Film Festival began travelling
from mid-October and has been viewed in many parts of the
country. The travel was co-ordinated by the WSF
secretariat.
In September we sent out a call letter inviting film
makers to participate in the festival. The films, we said,
should reflect the main themes of the WSF and there will be
a process of selection to decide which film will be screened
at the WSF.
By mid-October we realised that the decision to set up a
selection process was sound, as we already had far too many
films than that could be screened. Eventually, we had to
extend the original deadline of 31 October (to receive
preview copies) to 30 November 2003.
In the process to send the call letter as widely as
possible, and into the regions we normally don't see films
from, we began to ask friends and film makers to send out
the call letter to their network. And in this process we met
Todd Lester - in the cyber space - a communication student
at New York who had extensive experience of working in
Africa and of film festivals. Todd volunteered to help with
the festival and we gratefully accepted. And he contributed
to the festival in more ways than one.
From the 1st of December 2003 the selection committee sat in
New Delhi to select the final entries for the WSF Film
Festival. Even as the committee worked we continued to
receive entries for the festival. On the 7th December when
the committee wound up, it had viewed a total of 184 hours
of material in 222 films. After this, we did not - and could
not -accept any further entries although the requests still
kept poring in. At the final count we had received an
additional 100 odd films and forms which we couldn't keep in
the selection process.
In order to make the selection process transparent and
accountable we constituted a selection committee for
finalising the films that will be screened at the WSF. The
committee comprised of the following people:
Prof. Habeeb Kidwai (chair person) is the former
Director of the AJK Mass Communications Research Centre,
Jamia Millia Islamia University. Manjira Datta is
an award-winning filmmaker and photographer. Jai
Sen is a human rights activist who has been involved
with human rights and rights of the marginalised people for
the past three decades. Reena Mohan is an award
winning film maker and editor of repute. Aurelie de
Lalande is a young professional who has been working on
enhancing various NGOs' communication skills in Europe, West
Africa and India. Gargi Sen works with communication
and issues of human rights.
The selection process was extremely rewarding. It was a
pleasure to see the films and a wretch to leave many
excellent ones out. And the main issue was of time. We had
begun on the assumption that we will get 3 auditoriums and
by the time the selection process was over, we knew that we
had one, and maybe there could be a second one. So the
selection committee made 3 separate lists of films that
would be used as the final selection depending on the number
of auditoriums were assigned to the film festival. We were
told with certainty only by end-December that we had two
auditoriums and the final list was prepared. However, as we
needed to get the screening copies from film makers, by
December 10 we had begun to use the first list to call for
these. So in end-December we sent out another letter asking
for screening copies from film makers. And we are extremely
grateful that all such film makers obliged without a
fuss.
The two weeks prior to leaving for Bombay (called Mumbai
these days) were spent in finalising the festival brochure,
poster and the schedules - of the festival and the panel
discussions. And the help of Todd Lester and Bethany Cole
was invaluable for these tasks. The final schedule had 84
films from 40 countries and 27 panelists arrived from 10
countries.
We also had our round of controversies. Some film
makers and activists from India were unhappy with some of
the exclusion. However, as no selection process, however
transparent and accountable it may be, is not without
controversies, it was probably inevitable and unavoidable.
One such rejected film maker however felt enraged enough to
hold a protest screening outside the film festival venue on
the 20th of his film "Godhra Tak." I suppose this incident,
more than any other, demonstrated the openness of the WSF
space - even protest against it was imminently possible.
Other
Worlds Are Breathing: A festival of moving
images
|
|
The festival began on
January 17th morning and ended on the evening of the 20th.
The films were further categorised in the following
sections
- The
Global Market
- A
World at War
- A
World of Work and Survival
- Life,
Politics, Struggle
- The
World, Abused 1
- The
World, Abused 2
- The
Woman's World
- Identities
- Culture
/ Resistance
- Other
Worlds are Breathing
Jai Sen, a member of the
selection committee, named the sections as also the
festival. The title is inspired by Arundhati Roy's closing
words in her speech to the last Forum, in Porto Alegre, in
January 2003 - Other Worlds Are Breathing.
Hall Ghatak named after the legendary Bengali film
maker Ritwik Ghatak showed films under the sections: The
Global Market; A World of Work and Survival; Life, Politics
and Survival; The World Abused I and Other Worlds are
Breathing. Hall Eisenstein showed films under the
sections: A World at War; The Women's World; Identities;
Culture/Resistance and The World Abused II.
Every evening, after 8 p.m. when the section on
documentary and short closed, fiction films were screened.
This section was curated by Meenakshi Shedde and she showed
world classics.
On the 17th morning we ran into a technical snag and the
screenings of the morning was disturbed. The problem was
corrected soon. However 5 films, scheduled for the 17th
morning, were shifted to the 21st morning.
It was not a film festival in the traditional sense of the
word. It was much more. The combined seating capacity of the
halls were not sufficient to always seat people, people
lined walls and the aisles. Each day, on an average,
8-10,000 people formed the audience of the film festival.
Many serious film enthusiasts stayed in through out -
stepping out only for coffee or food. Many came for specific
films, rushed, in between meetings and important
presentations - and waited impatiently for their chosen
film. And a section of the crowd was floating, stopping to
see what was happening, as they did the rounds of the WSF,
and moved on.
Nevertheless, that a serious audience remained was evident
in the discussion times, in the impatience in the rare
breaks when nothing happened and were meant to be a break
merely (2 in the 4 days!) and by the queues that formed each
morning, before the venue opened. While we cleaned and did
tech-checks, people settled in around us. And very soon we
gave up trying to have everything perfectly working before
starting at 10 a.m. Sound and visual got checked, aisles
were cleared and a quick check of the days film's screenings
copies happened with the audience watching and waiting. The
only time we faced the ire of the audience was when the
schedule was changed.
The 17th morning was unavoidable. And it made people angry.
However, not angry enough to give up films. Only they made
sure that they stayed with the new schedule by returning
many times and checking it and asking the volunteers the
same thing over and over again. In fact the audience
returned for these films on the 21st morning, although the
WSF march took place in the city at the same time. And on
the 18th we ran half an hour behind schedule, much to the
chagrin of that section of the audience that came for
specific films. And by the 19th we were on line, and on
time, and with the relaxation came the pangs of separation:
only one more day to go!
On the 21st morning we screened the films that could not be
shown on the 17th. Additionally, an important Indian
documentary: The Final Solution was screened in the
hall across. This film did not make it to the selection
process and yet, as it was a very important documentary and
was presented to us a few days before the festival was to
open, we took this decision. It helped of course that the
film maker was from Mumbai and could hand us the screening
copy.
We had also done sufficient publicity of the special
screenings on the 21st morning and we had a very good
audience turn out.
Many participants to the WSF came with films that they
wanted to show. It was impossible to include them in the
main festival. However, on the 20th the culture committee
made a special space available to us. This was in the
video tunnel space and 18 films were screened, again
to a packed house.
Panel
Discussions at Other Worlds Are
Breathing
With ten complex themes and
many filmmakers in attendance, there were sixteen panel
discussions including 26 primary speakers both filmmakers
and activists alike during the WSF film festival.
Additionally, there were 20 qualified specialists drawn
directly from the audience to enrich these panel and
roundtable discussions. Panelists arrived from Canada (2),
US (4), India (11), South Africa (1), France (1), Thailand
(1), UK (2), Pakistan (2), Germany (1) and Morocco (1). The
format of the panel presentations and Q&A sessions was
to show 3-5 films that had been curated along the
aforementioned themes and then to have their
representatives/filmmakers discuss cumulative issues brought
out by the overall body of films in the thematic
sub-section. This also allowed for filmmakers to field
questions pertaining to individual films.
more
on panel discussions
Late
Night Classics of World Cinema
We thought of the feature
film section for not only as a variation in genre, but also
as an attempt to contextualise the contemporary struggles,
issues and expressions in the backdrop of world history.
While the documentary section concentrated mainly on films
made in last five years, the feature film section showcased
some of the classics of world cinema. We looked at issues
that had enraged or engaged mankind over the last century of
cinema, including war, dictatorship, poverty, unemployment,
communal violence, refugees, patriarchy and the exploitation
of the marginalised.
Since we could project only DVDs, it promptly ruled out a
lot of great cinema. Our final choice was D. W. Griffith's
Intolerance (US, 1916, b/w, silent) on intolerance & war
and M. S. Sathyu's Garam Hawa (India, 1973) on communalism
& partition, shown, Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year
Zero (Italy, 1947) on war and Majid Majidi's Baran (Iran,
2001) on patriarchy & refugees shown, Leo McCarey's Duck
Soup (US, 1933) on satire on dictatorship by the Marx
Brothers and Raj Kapoor's Shree 420 (India, 1955) on
poverty, unemployment and real estate crime shown, Jiri
Menzel's Closely Watched Trains (Czech Republic, 1996) on
satire on Czech occupation by Nazi Germany) and Walter
Salles' Central Station (Brazil, 1998) on exploitation of
street children shown.
M. S. Sathyu, Director of the legendary film Garam Hawa not
only personally presented his film also came back on the
consecutive days to hold discussions with the audience.
Starting at 8 pm this programme was popularly termed as late
night feature films, making it truly an adult affair. One
dire night, there were a some 500 audience who stayed till
the end of Griffith's masterpiece-running into 3 hours and
20 minutes-including foreigners, who realised they would be
missing the last train home in an unknown city, but did not
waver. Suddenly, all the doubts whether there was any
justification of screening feature films in WSF were
answered on its own.
Finally...
One repeated request we
received was that for repeat screening. The film that many
people wanted to see was The Corporation and a group
of youngsters were willing to view it late, after the
feature films ended, after midnight. We of course lacked the
collective energy for this enterprise. Similar requests were
made for The Peacekeepers and the Women , Swara- Bridging
Troubled Waters, Search for Freedom: a Story about 4 Afghan
Women, Tales of the Night Fairies, Words on Water, Say I Do,
The Men in the Tree and Live Containers. Films
that came from Eastern Europe had huge audiences and there
were repeated requests to screen these again and again.
Unfortunately, we did not have the time for repeat
screenings. We tried to set up a screening booth in the
foyer but it became an impossible task given the rush of
people each day. Also, that would have meant viewing them on
VHS, with ear phones, and one person at a time. Probably, if
we had planned It better, we could have made a number of
such viewing stalls, which might have been of some use to
the audience.
When we were asked to curate and coordinate the WSF Film
Festival I had asked Madhusree Dutta, the coordinator of the
Cultural Committee "Why a film festival? Nobody wants to see
films at the WSF. " And she said "Just for the experience of
it. Just to have huge audiences for these films. Lets
experience by participating…." and more such words of
wisdom that I can't completely remember. And the experience
of doing this gigantic project was eventually worth it
because of the astonishingly enthusiastic response from the
people. The huge turnouts would gladden the hearts of any
film maker. The panel discussion were deeply moving and
proved to me, and most panelists, the need to continue to
show films and discuss them.
And of course we made many friends. Todd and Bethany helped
us to make the festival what it became. Karin Jurschick,
Arlene Ami, David Kalpowitz, Tony Avirgan, Scott O'Brien and
Saw Eh Do Wah, Jawad Metwani and Prerena Reddy, Munaizae
Jehangir, Patrice Barat came from distanced lands. The
festival did not pay for their travel, nor put them up, nor
helped them in a city that we, ourselves, were strangers to.
They came on their own. And many wrote to us regretting that
funds barred them from being present. Many Indian film
makers too came for the festival, under similar conditions,
Sanjay Kak, Meghnath, Gautam Sonti, Rita Banerji, Aparna
Sanyal came from cities far away from Bombay. And of course
the Bombay film makers were present, even many whose films
were not showing.
In all it has been a very rewarding experience to do this
festival. We have seen some excellent films, made many
friends (and probably a few enemies as well), participated
in the WSF in a meaningful manner and had the pleasure of
seeing different audiences for different films. We are now
planning to send the films to travel in India (we'll write
for permissions etc.). There are also a few requests from
outside India for the festival. And maybe, we will do the
next WSF Film Festival in 2005 as well! So maybe we will all
meet once again, either in person or virtually.
Report by
Gargi Sen
With inputs from
Meenakshi Shedde (Section on Late Night Classics)
Todd Lester and Bethany Cole (Section on panel
discussions)
|
