Miffed jury gets selective with awards

Miffed jury gets selective with awards
Anupreeta Das

FEBRUARY 9: There was just one surprise in the otherwise lacklustre closing and awards ceremony of the just-concluded MIFF 2000, and that was the number of Golden Conch awards which remained on the shelf. The juries found only five films in the number entered for nine competitive categories, fit the bill for Best Film award, which carries a cash prize of Rs 2.5 lakh.

Richard Kaplan, the chairperson of the jury for films in the international competitition section, provided an explanation in his statement: ``The non-fiction films were not representative of the standards of the best international documentaries.'' Pointing out that a documentary film is much more than mere reportage or a textbook-like presentation of facts, Kaplan echoed the sentiments of Bankim, Director, MIFF, who had earlier spoken of (Indian) documentaries as being trapped at `an investigative or reportorial level'.

Add to this rather disappointing picture the ultimate dampener: Doordarshan refused to cover the closing ceremony (thenon-coverage was spurred by Lifetime Achievement Award winner Homi Sethna's acerbic comments that the national channel should ``hang its head in shame'', at the MIFF's opening ceremony). Bankim admitted he had not expected DD's reaction, and claimed helplessness. Surely, DD will be further miffed at Kaplan's suggestion that Sethna should be appointed I & B minister the next time the government falls.

Among the award-winning films are Delhi-based Arun Chadha's The Shame is not Mine (Golden Conch for Best Non-Fiction Video Film in the National category), which traces the story of how a rape victim turns into a rape survivor and regains acceptance in society, and Murali Nair's satirical Maranasimhasan/Throne of Death (Golden Conch for Best International Film/ upto 75 minutes).

Kaplan, who is one of America's best-known documentary filmmakers, also urged MIFF organisers to get their international publicity act together, in order to attract better entries from more (and better, we assume, goingby the Golden Conch extras) foreign filmmakers. Though the Silver Conches found more winning hands -- six out of nine -- many of the winners were not present at the ceremony, compered by actor Tom Alter, to accept their awards. Canadian filmmaker Magnus Isacsson's The Choir Boys won the Best Non-Fiction Video Film Award in the International category (above 60 mniutes), while the Silver Conch in the International Non-fiction Film (upto 50 minutes) went to Rajeev Mehrotra's Adoor: A Journey in Frames, which is an insight into the method and mind of director Adoor Gopalakrishnan.

The awards were presented by the chief guest, the recently-recovered P C Alexander, Governer of Maharashtra, and three closing films, inlcuding the Wim Wenders's directed Buena Vista Social Club (which was produced by Deepak Nayyar, of Bhopal Express fame) were screened.