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There were glitches galore but to those who are fond of cinema there were a number of good films in the MAMI festival, writes
Ervell E. Menezes
The curtain finally came down on the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) festival last month but the event, also known as the International Film Festival of India, is now being known for its glorious uncertainties. Shifted from November to January it finally took place from March 23 to 30 at two venues, the Imax cinema at Wadala with four screens and the Chavan Centre in South Mumbai with one screen. That the action is moving out of South Mumbai is obvious but the sad part is that Imax is not very accessible to the common man. The closing ceremony, however, was held at Chavan Centre and Jahnu Barua’s Maine Gandhi Ko Nahian Mara won the FIPRESCI (foreign critics) award. Yash Chopra was given the Lifetime Achievement award and music director Khayyam and actor Anil Kapoor also picked up awards. But the function dragged on for nearly two hours much to the consternation of those who wanted to see the closing film, Deepa Mehta’s Water. But then MAMI has a history of bad management. Last year the chief guest arrived an hour late. This time it was a slight improvement, delayed by 45 minutes. There was no control over the speeches and music director Khayyam took all of 15 minutes for his acceptance speech. Where have the event managers gone? The programmes were altered, the timings changed and other glitches but the powers that be keep on insisting that the next year will be better. To those who are fond of cinema, however, there were a number of good films and that was the biggest consolation. The opening film The Chorus (French) is surely not opening film stuff, it was more like a children’s film. How it got pride of place is anyone’s guess. There were tributes to Ismail Merchant (who passed away recently) and Prithviraj Kapoor and Roberto Rosellini in their centennial year. Merchant-Ivory’s The White Countess, directed by James Ivory and set in Shanghai is about the plight of a Russian countess who becomes a hooker and bar girl in that Chinese town –good film with typical Merchant-Ivory pace and ambience. The package of Spanish films was much appreciated as was the Introduction to Serbian Cinema and Dreams of a Nation — Palestine, apart from the usual World Vision that showcased European films from Poland, Hungary and of course the best of Indian regional cinema. It looks like the festival bug is catching on and each city believes in having its own festival, be it Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai or even Pune. It shows that cinema consciousness is spreading. Only the organisation and administration must improve. That MAMI has adopted that typical promo-hype was evident with the introduction number being repeated twice as in the case of ads. The films tom-tommed about most was a film about Amitabh Bachchan called Everlasting Light by Ram Madhwani and Being Cyrus, which is heavily sponsored. However, one was delighted by the Spanish, Polish, Serbian and Palestinian films. I’ve seen Pedro Almadavor’s All About My Mother in New Delhi a few years ago but saw it again here. What an experience! There are gays, transvestites, and normal men and women and it’s hard to recognise them. It is centred on Manuela who loses her 17-year-old son and goes back to Barcelona to trace his father. What a chequered journey it is — physically, emotionally, psychologically and of course cinematically. Prudes may call it perversity but it is part of life and hence realism and its USP is the strong narrative style — a real masterpiece. The same goes for Antonio Mercero’s The Fourth Floor (also Spain), which graphically captures the plight of cancer-stricken youths full of pranks and mischief in their wheelchairs. They play basketball, raid the kitchen and hospital office for their reports and try their best to put that dreaded disease on the backburner. They even have a Ben-Hur-type chariot race on wheel chairs. The film is based on a play by Albert Espinosa (he also wrote the screenplay) who is himself a cancer survivor like cycling champion Lance Armstrong. Rashed Masharawi’s Curfew is a poignant story of one day in the life of a Palestinian family in the Gaza Strip and how they have to overcome tough odds. It is more human than political and brings out that scourge that is war. But the same cannot be said of Canticles of the Stone, which is a trip down memory lane of two lovers but never really catches on. The Polish film Zorek by Ryozard Bryiski is also brilliant as it captures the journey of a mother and daughter in search of the father of the girl’s child. The girl is mentally challenged so it is even more difficult. But in the process it opens the door to some of her mother’s secret past. Catholicism, sin, guilt and baptism figure prominently in the fare. It is also a good blend of content and form, typical of Polish cinema. So, at the end of the week there was much to savour for the film buff. If only things could have been better arranged. One hopes MAMI 2007 will be better. |
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