MIFF needed fine-tuning more than the films
Ervell E. Menezes

THE 8th Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) for documentary, short and animation films made the news for the wrong reasons. Even at the closing ceremony Australian filmmaker Tom Zubrycki voiced his concern about things. "The censorship issues must be resolved quickly and effectively, otherwise MIFF will lose its credibility."

Zubrycki also expressed dismay that a number of "sponsored programmes" passed off as films this year. The trouble this year was that it was held between the terms of two directors and the controversy was caused by falling between two stools. The powers that be thus resorted to rhetoric to defend themselves.

"Fine-tuning" is one of the terms used to describe censorship. When asked why there were so few films on Gujarat, new director Raghu Krishna said that sedition was an important clause, implying that it was the reason for leaving them out. But while films depicting Muslim fundamentalism got enough coverage the same could not be said about Hindu fundamentalism.

For this reason, those who protested organised a parallel or alternative film festival called Vikalp (Alternative) Films for Freedom at Bhupesh Gupta Bhavan, a stone’s throw from the MIFF site.

P.L.Deshpande, the Maharashtra Kala Academy, Ravi Natya Mandir. Two hundred and seventy five documentary filmmakers under the banner of Campaign Against Censorship (CAC), among them those who withdrew their films from MIFF, jointly voiced their protest.

At the press conference of MIFF sparks flew and the authorities cut a sorry figure. They talked of transparency but did not implement it. Some of the blame must go to the former director Mukhopadhya for the composition and functioning of the selection committee. It did not have a chairperson, which is indefensible. The marking system too was flawed because the panel members were not told whether the film was selected or not, which of course left enough room for manoeuvrability. And that was the crux of the issue.

The MIFF director Raghu Krishna even expressed the strain that they underwent to host the festival which looked like doing a Pontius Pilot act, absolving himself of the responsibility. But even the protestors thought that doing away with the festival was not the best way out. As the Chairman of the Jury Zubrycki finally put it. It is a question of resolving the censorship issue. Called by any name, censorship or fine-tuning, it must be addressed and the voice of dissent must be heard. This is the essence of the documentary movement.

Noted filmmaker Girish Karnard quit the Jury of the censorship clause. So did selection committee member filmmaker R.V.Ramani. This made MIFF withdraw the censorship clause but it brought it in from the backdoor with terms like "fine-tuning."

Noted documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardan, whose film War and Peace ran into censorship problems, was among the protestors.

Coming to the winners, Supriyo Sen’s Way Back Home, which was about finding his roots in Bangladesh, won three major award including Best Film (Rs 2.5 lakh). The other award winners included Yasmine Kabir’s A Certain Liberation (Bangladesh), Adela Peeva’s Whose is the Song (Bulgaria) and Arun Chadha’s Swayam. I saw a bit of Way Back Home and liked it but I must say in the general that some of the films were quite bad. Like Respiration, The Nobel Truth, Dalai Lama the Birth of a God and Water. But there were also some excellent films. One of the best films is undoubtedly Days and Nights in an Indian Jail by Sunandan and Yugesh Walia, two Indian-born UK based brothers. It really enters the psyche of prisoners languishing in Tihar jail, some without being convicted. The two Pakistani films Terror’s Children by Sharmeen Obaid, about Muslim fundamentalism, and Swara-A Bridge Over Troubled Waters by Samar Minalah about the Pukhtun custom of settling a dispute by the penalised party giving their daughter in marriage to the aggrieved party. Peter Wintonick and Katerina Cizek’s Seeing is Believing– Handicams, Human Rights and the News is also brilliant as it deals with a modern gadget, the handicam which has become the eyes of the world when no one is watching. Wintonick first introduced staunch critic of the USA Noam Chomsky to us exactly a decade ago. Catalina Villar’s Welcome in Colombia (France) is also a heart-rending story of the violence that is part of Colombia for decades while Elian Traheb’s Suicide (Lebanon) takes a swipe at the American hand in overthrowing Saddam Hussain and the Muslim reaction. In fact, also the suicide that led to it.

All said and done, MIFF this year raised quite a few questions. How they are addressed remains to be seen.

HOME