Director's Cut - 3

Day 3. 9th Dec 2009. I had made the promos for that night's movie with the tagline "Come and see what it takes to beat Lagaan". No Man's Land. (Danis Tanovic/2001/Bosnian). Some of you would have seen this movie; most of you would have heard about this movie. NML emerged the winner in the Oscars ceremony in 2002 and I vividly remember that day. I was in my final year of engineering. Dozens of us were in the common room watching the live relay from Hollywood. Lagaan had by then created waves all over the world. The simple storyline of David v/s Goliath set wonderfully in the pre-Independence India, with Goliath being the British and rustic Aamir as David had struck chord with everyone. AR Rahman's compositions had also mesmerised all. Lagaan ran for more than 3 hour 30 minutes without any dullness. Great job by Gowarikar. I remember even one of the IIMs had used Lagaan to teach management! No wonder that dozens of us were waiting for India and Aamir to hold the Oscar.

...and the Award goes to No Man's Land! Huge disappointment, then. NML is just the opposite of Lagaan. While Lagaan takes forward a simple plot in a highly entertaining way, NML presents us a grand plot covering global politics, cultural issues, military mindsets, patriotism, media hypes and a few more in a very simple yet a very hard hitting way - that too in just under 100 minutes! At the end of show everyone was left with a deep impact. It was a worthy defeat for Lagaan. Not many of us had seen such a movie before. The talks between the two men in the no man's land made us laugh at a few places but at the same time those dialogs were quite deep. What an end! I had another night of peaceful sleep. Some of the audience personally congratulated me for choosing NML! I plan to watch L'enfer by Danis Tanovic.

Day 4. Downfall.

In the first place I was not sure whether to have The Counterfeiters (Stephen Ruzowitzky/2007/German) or this movie, Downfall, in the itenary. I decided to go ahead with The Counterfeiters. But just a few moments before I clicked "Print" in NIFF_Schedule.docx, I got The Counterfeiters changed to Downfall (Hirschbiegel/2004/Germany). Though a heavy movie, my friends would like to know Hitler's final weeks, I felt. I had seen this movie a few months back.

Being a Friday the audience count had touched thirty! The majority of them were due to the curiosity-factor. Anyway by then at least 25 viewers was the norm.

Though some more editing would have made the movie more riveting, at the end of the show everyone was feeling - heavy and as a part of one of the defining times of the modern world history. Downfall proved yet again that language does not matter...all it mattered was whether a movie is able to "connect" with the audience, and what is "new".

Director's Cut - 2

I consider my contribution to the world of cinema to be - over! I have personally been instrumental in making close to thirty people watch Rashomon. (Akira Kurosawa/1950/Japan). Well I do not say all those thirty saw the movie only because of me; I just meant that I had a huge role there. The past one week has been quite tiring and exciting. Being the Secretary, Film Society here I am supposed to screen 1-2 movies every week. These were typically old Hindi or English movies. And generally only 4-5 viewers (including the person who is in-charge of the audi) turned out for these movies. A show is treated to be Houseful if the audience count touches the magical double-digit figure - ten. Sometimes due to the poor turnout I have even felt very lonely and scared in the Auditorium! Well...the only exception to that till the last week has been Andaz Apna Apna. (Rajkumar Santoshi/1994/Hindi). More than fifteen people had come to watch that rib-tickling comedy by the Khans. I too enjoyed the movie. I almost placed a "HOUSEFUL" board outside the auditorium.

To break the monotony and my loneliness in the Auditorium, I hit upon the idea of screening a few international movies. (International means - Non-English/Indian) It was a huge risk and I felt I was driving away even the regular 4-5 viewers. Anyway I was prepared for it. Even if no one else turns out I was sure at least two viewers would; my close fellows here...captive, guaranteed and helpless audience! A personal gain behind this idea was that over the past one year I had seen most of the movies only in my room, on my HCL desktop. So watching a few of those great movies in a "cinema hall" was not a bad idea. And I have this luxury only till this month-end, when my tenure ends and the new FilmSec would take charge. Things got going and I put up the itinerary for the week-long NIFF ~ NADT International Film Festival 2009.

The lineup was - Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico), Rashomon (Japan), No Man's Land (Bosnia), The Downfall (Germany) and Children of Heaven (Iran). I had also planned to screen Mongol (Mongolia). I had wanted to show only those critically-acclaimed movies that were also interesting enough; not the usual slow-paced, art-movie types. I thought, in that way I would help break the normal mindset that award-winning movies are either too slow or over-the-head.

Here are a few lines from the gmail chat I had with one of my good friends (GF) here...just a few nights before the inaugural show of NIFF.

GF: "if u had 2 do a festival 4 urself thn why waste our money on posters"

GF: "so a mixture is always good"

GF: "wht u r doing is social exclusion of those whose tastes dont conform 2 urs."

Me: "i am sure more than 10 will turn up on one of these days!"

GF: "show mithunda's Gunda... best ever B-grade movie made...it was the biggest hit in kharagpur."

I reduced my audience estimates after that chat. I found some sense in what that sensible GF was saying. I felt only the usual 4-5 would turn up to NIFF too. Being shown on weekdays....will even the usuals come? Question mark.

Day One. Monday. Dec 7th. Pan's Labyrinth. All my assumptions about the kind of cinema people would like to watch - were demolished without a trace, for the good. To my utter surprise quite a few number of people started pouring in and by the time the movie ended the count had touched..hold your breath...t w e n t y! Unbelievable! People were ready to take a few steps to drop in and see..."What's new?". Language was not a serious barrier. All that matters was a novelty factor to begin with, and to sustain the crowd all it takes is a gripping storyline and a beautiful narration. By the end of the show...everyone was thoroughly mesmerised by Ofelia's fairy world and equally disturbed by the evil Captain. Day One was a success! I had a good sleep.

Day Two. Rashomon. It is said that Rashomon made Hollywood stop for a while and turn towards Asia. Being shot in black and white I was not sure if it was a good choice for NIFF. Still I went ahead - just to tell everyone what made Akira - the Master. I also wanted to make sure that my friends had something to say when they had to come across the so-called connoisseurs of world cinema. It worked...more applause for Akira. My job was done. That was my greatest contribution to cineworld yet.

The story will continue...

(PS: On a special directive from that GF, I would like to make it amply clear that GF is not equal to Girl Friend. For this post, GF = Good Friend. This GF's name is Smarak Swain @ Mark Twain)

Director's Cut - 1

It happened at last!! Ever since my Higher Secondary school days I wanted to be a cinema director! Seriously. I am not joking. I don't know from where that dream landed in my brain and heart. But it did. During my earlier school days I wanted to be a Doctor. It is a different, tragic story that the biology classes in our high school days pushed me to opt for the Computer Science group during my higher secondary classes.

September 19-20, 2009. Tanjavur.

I was sitting next to the director of "Kalavani" looking at the monitor! It has been more than a decade since I finished my schooling. It was a great feeling to find myself in the sets of an actual movie shooting. Kind of dream come true.

Beauty in chaos - that is the only line that can truly convey what happens on the sets. You have people running around madly looking for someone/something, assistants desperately trying to get the sets and the props ready, a few men shouting at the top of their voices asking someone to get something to the sets, tea boys shuttling at the location with tea cups/juice bottles, associates trying to explain the situation to the cast/crowd and make them ready for the shoot, huge cables from the generator van coiled around the whole place like hungry pythons, dance masters trying to extract the right moves, the lead artists' vans parked at a distance, a few men permanently hooked on to their cellphones, the curious crowd that sieges the unit, the caterer with his huge tiffin carriers...the list goes on. And at the end of all this repeated over a few months or so - you have a finished movie! That is something truly amazing.

The whole thing hinges on that one person called - Director. Apart from being a highly creative person, a director is also expected to be an extraordinary General Manager. I really don't know how in spite of all the headaches on the sets, one is able to be creative and make others too deliver. Creativity needs relatively calmer mind/environment, as far as I know. For instance let us take the apparently creative task of writing this blog post. Just try writing something or drawing something with a dozen people watching you amidst lots of chatter. It is not going to be an easy task even to write one good paragraph. Just magnify the complexity of the creative task as well the chaos around, say a thousand times, you have a director's job!

The story will continue...