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Power of the lens
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Hyderabadis got to appreciate women's cinema at the first International Women's Film Festival that was showcased recently. R. UMA MAHESHWARI reports
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Aparna Sen
"When people ask me if I am a feminist filmmaker,
I reply I am a woman and I also make films."
(Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman)
IS THERE a genre called women's cinema? Is women's cinema, by default, feminist cinema? Do the `female' lenses seek and present images necessarily different from the `mainstream'? Some of these questions kept the audience busy over the last few days as Hyderabad witnessed its first International Women's Film Festival, organised by the Mumbai based Point of View, in collaboration with the Hyderabad Film Club. This travelling film festival - which unfolded at Mumbai on March 8, International Women's Day - has so far toured Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore, and will move to Trivandrum and Chennai. Star Movies is its lead sponsor, besides support from Mama Cash, Global Fund for Women, Swayam and the Federation of Film Societies of India.
The festival presented five of the best in world cinema from March 26 to 31 March. It started with rare archival footage from films made by French filmmaker Alice Guy, who was honoured in 1978 as the world's first woman filmmaker. Samira Makhmalbaf's The Apple (1998), Lucrecia Martel's Le Cienaga (The Swamp, 2001), Jane Campion's Sweetie (1989), Vera Chytilova's Sedmikrasky (Daisies, 1966) and Aparna Sen's 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981) were part of the fare. For the first time, in a long time, Sarathi Studios saw a packed auditorium (on the inaugural day).
About the choice of the films, the Festival Coordinator from Point of View, Anuja Ghosalkar said, "we were watching films since last May. Our emphasis was on excellence, not necessarily about women's issues. It is about women bringing to the art their own perceptions. Next year we plan to include documentaries and short films as well in the package, and hope to make it an annual event and take it to smaller towns."
Samira Makhmalbaf
The festival also saw the release of the book, Cinemalochana: Thoughts on Cinema (in Telugu) by Hyderabad-based filmmaker - journalist, Kiranmayi.
The inaugural film got the best share - both in terms of audience strength and appreciation. Samira (Mohsen Makhmalbaf's daughter) made The Apple at the age of 17. The film was invited for screenings at 100 international festivals in just two years. As most Iranian films, this had a simple storyline. The world of two little girls, Masoumeh and Zohra, their blind mother and an ageing father. Acting on complaints by neighbours that the father locks up and chains his children, the Welfare department officer forces the old man to come to terms with his folly, and let his girls experience their childhood and freedom. But the question arises - is the father really cruel? Is there love and caring within the dark corners of his limited world? The apple is a metaphor for desire, freedom and innocence. The film won the Best Film award at the Torino International Festival of Young Cinema, besides getting special mention at Locarno and Munich.
In stark contrast, was the depressing The Swamp, where the closest Lucrecia comes to defining nature is by zooming in on the swamps of Argentinean countryside, which sucks the life out of one. The beauty of nature - the mountains, the rain - does not touch the lives of those that live amidst it. Instead, nature only seems repulsive as the lives of the families are played out. Sweetie, by Australian director Jane Campion (director of The Piano, In The Cut, etc) continued the `disturbing' trend. Campion focuses on the life of Sweetie (or Dawn), an overweight woman with a `mental problem' but vivacious, playful and emotionally charged, and the way she virtually rules over the lives of her family - a doting, concerned father, an exasperated `normal' sister Kate (and her boyfriend) and their mother. There is also a comment on the ways of perceiving `normality'. A more offbeat, very visual, and artistic film was Daisies, by the Czech filmmaker, Vera Chytilova. Vera was one of the avant-garde New Wave Czech filmmakers, who experienced her share of censorship in a Communist country for "lacking a positive attitude to socialism" - ironically, her socialistic concern was evident in the film. Interestingly, the audience got copies of a letter written by Vera to the Czech President, Gustav Husak in 1975, in the International Year of Women. A much-disturbed Vera writes about her being out of work, censorship denying her right to make films of her choice. She was refused permission to attend the Festival of Women's Films in Washington in 1975. Chytilova was honoured with the Outstanding Contribution to World Cinema award at Karlovy Vary International Film festival, and Palme d'Or at Cannes for her Fruit of Paradise.
Vera Chytilova
Daisies got her critical acclaim. It has interesting play with colours, speed and mixing. Made in the year 1966, it must have been quite a revolution in cinematic creativity, without the kind of technology we have access to today.
The festival ended with the much acclaimed, 36 Chowringhee Lane.
One hopes this will be a major annual event to look forward to in Hyderabad. And with more discerning audiences that it truly deserves.
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