NRI DIARY

OTHER STORIES RELATED TO NRI DIARY India Calling London Diary Race Relations Cinema: Good, Bad and Ugh! Looking Glass Business: Falling Stars Media: Whose Wave is it Anyway American Round Up Weekly Round Up Business: Early Departure Living: Forward March Entertainment: The NR Eye

Perhaps it had to do with the logo itself: a movie reel wound over a teeming popcorn bag with the Gateway of India below and flags of participating countries floating above. The 4th International Film Festival-Mumbai (IFFM) organised by the Mumbai Academy of The Moving Image (MAMI, November 21-29) was similarly entangled in infrastructural glitches. The magnitude helped somewhat though: 145 films, 11 sections, 31 nations and 3,345 delegates.

The festival opened tamely with Bandits, co-produced by Ashok Amritraj's Hyde Park Entertainment. The little attention it warranted was only due to Amritraj's presence at the screening and the fact that it's a recent Hollywood release starring Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchett.

MIXED BAG: (from top) Dilip Kumar at the inauguration; Mumbai's Imax theatre; a still from Bandits

The "Indian Panorama" section comprised the best of Indian cinema made in 2000 including Gautam Ghosh's Bariwali, Buddhadev Dasgupta's Uttara and Shyam Benegal's Zubeidaa. But it was relegated in popularity by the Film India Worldwide (FIW) section that highlighted the foray of Indians into the international film scene. Apart from Piyush Pandya's American Desis, the other FIW films that received positive reviews were Gaurav Seth's Passage to Ottawa, Gurinder Chadha's What's Cooking and Asif Kapadia's The Warrior.

The films in the "Focus on Iran" section had a simple and humane narrative and included Maryam Shahriar's Daughters of the Sun, Majid Majidi's The Last Village, Abbas Kiarostami's And Life Goes On and Two Women by Tahmineh Milani, who stands the danger of execution for her latest film, if convicted in a state trial.

In the "Retrospectives", the perceptive satires of Hungarian director Peter Bacso, one of the few international directors present at the festival, like What's the Time, Mr Clock? and Banana Skin Waltz were enjoyed more than French director Alain Corneau's and Japanese director Sakamoto Junji's films. The Ritwik Ghatak Retrospective, replete with classics like Ajantrik, Meghe Dhaka Tara and Komal Gandhar, had its fair share of votaries.

The "World Cinema" segment included Argentine Night On The Terrace, Zhang Yimou's Chinese movie The Road Home and the Postman in the Mountain by Huo Jianqi, also Chinese.

The additional sections introduced this year were "Treasure from Archive" and "Special Screenings". The pick of this section were Bhutanese filmmaker Khyentse Norbu's The Cup, inspired by true events, and Jan Sverak's Czech film Kolya, winner of an Oscar.

While Iranian, Chinese and Japanese directors were conspicuous by their absence, the Canadians took the cake in cashing in on the media visibility opportunity that the festival offered. With Mumbai playing host, a huge Bollywood and television turnout was a foregone conclusion. But there weren't more than 10 international attendees. Among those who attended were Irene Bignardi, Peter Bacso, John Winter, Asif Kapadia, Geretta Geretta, Francois Gerard and Phaedon Vass. The International Federation of Film Critics panel comprised Angel Comas from Spain, Junichi Tomonari from Japan and Ranjita Biswas from India.

Ironically, despite ugly sponsorship banners and logos dominating the venues-imax Adlabs Multiplex, Y.B. Chavan and Tata Theatres, Gossip and Plaza-Shyam Benegal, MAMI chairman, carped about inadequate revenue. That, however, was no deterrent for the festival notched up higher attendance. It also felicitated veteran actors Dilip Kumar, Rekha and cinematographer V.K. Murthy. By the way, the closing film was Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding, the flick that generated animated buzz. At least the IFFM got some things right.

Natasha Israni