Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
Of films and art
|
What irks filmmaker Shaji Karun?
|
Photo: SHAJU JOHN
THINK IT OVER Shaji Karun feels a debate should start on why we don’t make it to international film festivals
Shaji Karun, the famous filmmaker from Kerala is a disappointed man these days. The former Chairman of the Kerala State Chalchitra Academy rues that this year there was no official entry from India to the Cannes film festival. And that it has been
happening for the past six to seven years.
“They have taken films from small places like Singapore, Turkey, Vietnam and Cambodia but not India. It is because despite making 1000 films a year, we cannot produce even one film that matches international standards. They don’t say that openly to us. When I talked to them, they just said that ‘the gates are now closed’. I know what that means, because all my films get an entry there. From among 4000 entries they just take 20 films, and we don’t come remotely close to the top list. What’s the contribution of stars like Shah Rukh Khan to the world cinema? They made Aishwarya Rai represent India because a substantial part of the film festival was funded by L’Oreal and she is its brand ambassador. Do we just need cosmetics to represent us there? Aren’t they laughing at us by doing that? We can’t send good films, so they take a beautiful face from here!”
Shaji, incidentally, is currently working on an interesting project, Suryamukhi. This is his Hindi feature on the last six years of Raja Ravi Varma’s life. It stars Vidya Balan and Madhavan.
On Suryamukhi
“In his last years, Varma turned a printer — a businessman rather than an artist. It marked his failure. It is also about his association with wine and women,” he shares. Made with “extensive research”, and against the backwaters of Kerala, the film’s budget is 3.35 crores. The film will go on the floors in November, he adds.
For now, the filmmaker, whose debut film Piravi won the Camera d’ Or Mention d’honneur at the Cannes Film Festival, is busy finishing a feature film in Malayalam called Kutty Sarin. It is about the body of a boatman that remains unidentified. Three men come and talk about him. “It is produced by Reliance,” he says.
RANA SIDDIQUI
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
|
