Visions of India package raises dust

Visions of India package raises dust
ANUPREETA DAS

MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 5: India may not have arrived on the international film scene yet, but recently, there have been enough foreign cinematic visions of India for film festival organisers to include special packages of films made on India by foreign filmmakers, or by Indian filmmakers living abroad.

The International Film Festival of India, (IFFI 2000), which got over last month, introduced a special India and International Screens package, for example, and now it is the turn of MIFF 2000 to include nine films, grouped under Visions of India, as one of their special packages.

French Filmmaker, Indian Subject: A PTI report published in The Indian Express today claimed that a French film had been dropped at the last minute from MIFF 2000 because of its anti-national content. The film in question -- India: Turmoils of the Century, made by noted French filmmaker Arnaud Mandagaran -- is a two-part documentary on the contemporary history of thesubcontinent, which allegedly contains footage of the Babri Masjid demolition and certain unacceptable shots of Kashmir, says a Films Division employee, on condition of anonymity.

While representatives from the French Consulate in the city were unavailable for comment, Bankim, Director, MIFF, and Chief Producer, Films Division, says he is unaware of the films content. ``The print was sent to us much after the deadline due to a hitch in communication, and I am yet to see it. Once I do, I will be able to take a decision on whether it should be screened at MIFF or not, '' he stated, adding that the same film was withdrawn from the Paris Film Festival.

Shot in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition, the two-hour, ten-minute duration of India, may also be considered too long to be shown at a festival for short, animation and documentaries. We are not censors, our only concern is that good films should be shown at the festival, but if there is a risk that the film will hurt viewers' sentiments, then wewould not show it, stated Bankim.

Other films included in the Visions of India package are A Calcutta Christmas by Australian filmmaker Maree Delofski, which addresses questions of identity through the story of 35 inmates of a Calcutta home, and Doing Time, Doing Vipassanna, which documents the life of Delhi's Tihar jail inmates who are introduced to vipassanna meditation by Kiran Bedi.

Women and Cameras: Debra Zimmerman of the US-based Women Make Movies (WMM), who is here with a package of eight films, may be all marketing savvy, but she says it all stems from a strong political commitment to help women make their voices heard. Filmmaker and cameraperson Sabeena Gadihoke, who teaches mass communications at Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia University, introduces Three Women and a Camera, her 56-minute video film on three of India's best-known women photographers. A feminist film, she admits it was fuelled by personal agenda -- ``I am a feminist'' -- but leaves it to the audience todraw their own conclusions.

The personal, for most women filmmakers, definitely seems to be the political. And its resulting in refreshing cinema. It could be slickly-produced, like UK-based Pratibha Parmar's Warrior Marks (1993), a disturbing and powerful depiction of female genital mutilation, or the amateurish, almost shaky direction in Pakistani filmmaker Sabiha Sumars Don't Ask Why, a 58-minute documentary on a teenaged girl, caught, at the eve-of-the-millennium, in Karachi's increasingly religious and rigid society. The questions both films raise are the same: Women, long considered victims of an oppressive, patriarchal society, calling themselves survivors, perhaps aggressors.