No Journalist to be Invited to IFFI and Film Bazaar, Say the Chiefs

Any movie festival anywhere in the world takes pride in inviting journalists because it understands that only they, and they alone, can promote the event – or least talk about it in their newspapers or websites or television channels. Three of the biggest festivals in the world -- Cannes, Venice, and Berlin -- invite a large number of journalists, and I have been one among them for decades. In fact, I have covered Cannes alone for 28 years, Venice for a good 18 and festivals like Dubai, Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Marrakech, Tokyo, Deauville, etc for several years – and all on an invitation.

In fact, when I first began my relationship with Cannes there were just two Indians there, Sreenivasan Narayanan from the National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) and I. But in the course of time, dozens of Indians began to visit Cannes, and today at least 300 of them are there year after year with movies to be screened at the market or to buy the festival's big titles. And many of the Indians learnt about Cannes from my daily columns in The Hindu among others. Cannes knows this and understands this and respects the journalists who write about it.

But sadly, the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) – which begins its run on November 20 in Goa's capital city, Panaji -- and the NFDC's attractively organised Film Bazaar -- which takes place in the same city from November 20 to 24 – have decided not to invite any journalist this year. This was clearly conveyed to me over the telephone by IFFI's new director, Sunit Tandon, and the head of the Film Bazaar, Raja Chinai. They averred that they had been given explicit instructions not to invite journalists.

I am of course one who is affected as well. For several years, I had been invited both by the Film Bazaar and IFFI. In fact, I have covered IFFI for close to three decades, and for many years as an invited journalist. Ditto, the Film Bazaar.

But this year, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, which is in overall charge of both IFFI and the Film Bazaar, has for some strange reason reportedly decided not to invite journalists. As one from the tribe quipped, there seems to be some kind of censorship involved here.

Be that as it may, in a long scene scenario – where IFFI and the Film Bazaar have hardly been covered by the national media – the Ministry's reported decision seems so very shortsighted.

What is more, given the kind of mess IFFI now finds itself in with two of the movies (Nude and S Durga) selected by a jury (which the Ministry itself chose), headed by the eminent director, Sujoy Ghosh (who has now resigned in protest), taken off the list by the Ministry, it is appears only prudent that important journalists are at hand in Panaji to write balanced pieces or help televise the truth in what to me looks like a real bleak picture.

If the Marathi directors of the nine films in the Panorama are thinking of withdrawing their works in solidarity with the affected Marathi title, Ravi Jadhav's Nude, Sanal Sasidharan, whose S Durga has also been axed, is planning to move the court.

I have not seen Nude (which though according to Jadhav is the story of a poor woman who poses for artists, but done with great aesthetics and care), but S Durga has nothing, nothing at all that can even remotely offend any sensibility. It has nothing to do with any religion. It is not vulgar, by no stretch of imagination, and I feel that it a movie that must be seen. And I saw this as early as last November in the Film Bazaar. I watched it again this year at Tokyo.

Adding to all this, is the ill-conceived decision not to invite journalists to IFFI and the Film Bazaar. The whole picture now looks so very out-of-focus.



(The author is a writer, commentator and film critic)