India still film-maker's magnificent obsession

India still film-maker's magnificent obsession
ANUPREETA DAS

FEBRUARY 8: As the ongoing Mumbai International Film Festival, MIFF 2000, enters its last day, the refrain about the problems of documentary filmmakers has given way to a mood of review. In the prevalent ruminative atmosphere, one thing is certain - India is incomparable bounty for filmmakers looking for a subject to document. There have been films on everything Indian, from Seventies screen vamp Helen (Desperately Seeking Helen, directed by Indian-born Canadian Eisha Marjara) to biographies of Indian stalwarts (Adoor: A Journey in Frames, directed by Rajeev Mehrotra of Media Art) to ideas of India (Transition Times, directed by Shantanu Dey).

Then, there are some like Australian filmmaker, Kay Rasool, who says she was forced to abandon her Indian nationality in the aftermath of the Babri masjid demolition. ``I felt a huge sense of betrayal at the direction in which India was moving, and by staying on, I didn't think I could make much of a difference,'' she explained. In India withMy Journey, My Islam, a film which explores one woman's relationship with her religion, Rasool did, however insist that she never left India to run away from issues. ``That's why I've made this film and brought it here, ''she said.

Network Dinners
For the 300-odd delegates of MIFF 2000, the evening is a time for increased socialisation, what with dinners in their honour being hosted nearly every day by every minister, association and senior official involved with the festival. Dinner invitations, therefore, are a rather prized acquisition, and a certain Indian delegate, on his first ever film festival, claims he spent the better part of the day looking for his invitation to the dinner to be hosted at the Chief Minister's residence.

These dinners may not be memorable for the food they serve (greasy and unimaginative), but they are a platform for filmmakers, foreign and Indian to meet journalists, distributors to explain what they look for in a film, and the festival organisers to looktheir unofficial best.

Growing Pains Made Easy
Intended as an initiative to take sex education into classrooms, Growing Up, a series of three documentaries (of which the third is still under production) by the husband and wife team of N. Ramakrishnan and Venu Arora, is fun. Targeted at urban, school-going children between the ages of 10 and 14, the two 22-minute films that were screened at MIFF 2000 (Growing Up-I: From Small to Big and Growing Up-II: It's Not Just Physical), are laden with humour, and attempt to acquaint children with the human anatomy, puberty and reproductive health. Puppets and a computer together try and figure out how humans grow and change. ``We plan to offer the films, along with a handbook, as a complete package to anyone who works with children,'' says Arora.

The duo hopes that the series, partly funded by a BBC World Service Training Project, will be a tool for teachers who ``more often than not, rush through the chapter on reproductive anatomy,'' and help stem themisinformation, or sheer lack of awareness about sex and attendant concerns, among children. Future plans include adapting the film, which has been shot in English, to suit children in semi-urban and rural areas.