IIPM Review MBA 2012 - Delhi Bangalore Jaipur Lucknow Admissions
As IFFI, Goa drew to a close on December 3, one heard veiled whispers of “Boss, mazaa nahi aaya; koi dhang ka Bollywood star tha hi nahin!” to “yaar, pata nahin kyun yeh festival karte hain! Do din baad, it's back to Bollywood, the hungama about The Dirty Picture and whether the Khans still rule supreme… kaun yaad rakhega these vague French, Belgian and Iranian directors? It's back to square one. What a waste of time and tax-payers' money! Mere hisaab se it's nothing more than a phoney, pretentious dikhawa of celebrating cinema as an art form and attracting global film personalities so that India can show the world that she too is capable of hosting big-ticket Film Festivals! Bakwaas! Sirf Carnival, picnic, drama, nothing else!”
Reputed, respected, veteran film critic Saibal Chatterjee – first off the block – refuses to keep silent and reacts with all cylinders firing! “It is these kind of brain-dead responses that instantly places and positions India as a solid Third World dump! How totally regressive and culturally-challenged!” Chatterjee explains with rare candour and knowledge. “Let's get one thing straight. Film Festivals (Cannes, Venice, Berlin) were never meant for the aam aadmi, the hoi polloi umbilically wedded to mainstream commercial (Bollywood potboilers)! It was meant essentially as a B-to-B initiative… a celebration of the best of world cinema for the cognoscenti and film industry to expose them to every aspect of cinema as an art form, a vehicle that entertains and enriches even as it empowers. Students from film schools, technicians, writers and directors continue to throng those meets to see, awe-struck, what cinema can do to the human mind and where it has gone as a medium of stunning creativity.” Chatterjee believes that it started out right (in 1952, when India hosted her first international film festival in Delhi, a huge success !) and across decades has been solely responsible for giving us Rays, Ghataks and Benegals as well as the glorious parallel cinema of the seventies and eighties. Tragically, in the last few decades, changing times, crazy consumerism and the overwhelming influence of Bollywood has hijacked the heart – and focus – of these wonderful festivals, rendering them a kind of arty-look for a niche crowd looking for something away from mainstream. While that’s partly true, its basic intent to cater to professionals of the film industry and lovers of good cinema, seems to have gone under a cloud, inviting the kind of silly comments one just heard. It's sad that the guys who need to be exposed to quality cinema the most – Bollywood, whose idea of great cinema appears to be Rockstar and The Dirty Picture – are the ones who hardly visit, except for tokenism or publicity!
Kalyan Sarkar agrees wholeheartedly. The ex-FTII student (early 80s) of camera and direction – presently Dean, Cinema Studies AAFT, Noida – is shocked at the mindset of these anpadh ganwaars! “Waste of time and tax-payers' money? What do these people do with their precious time anyway… read crap, watch those dumbed-down TV serials or drool over the latest Bollywood entertainers? As for tax-payers' money, can you even begin to compare film festivals to the fabulous scams of recent times, (involving lakhs of crores) or the pathetic indifference to basic infrastructure like roads, power etc? And what budgets are we talking about? Film festivals cost a pittance compared to other (Commonwealth Games?) shows and bring so much cultural and intellectual value to their basic mission of exposing people to quality cinema from all parts of the globe. Initiating them into an alternative space, beyond the usual formulaic fare, which educates, informs, provokes and moves the heart while challenging the brain. Also, festivals offer a matchless platform to gifted – but struggling – directors, actors, writers, technicians (without any bloodline connect to the biggies of the industry) to showcase their talent and move on to bigger things.”
Collegian Vikram Behl begs to differ. “Art? Culture? Alternative space? What total humbug! Film festivals celebrate fakes and phonies who – with some exceptions – use precious funds to present their weird, whacky, tortured, crazed vision of life and the world to an unguarded audience who are scathed for life!” Behl believes most of it is neither entertaining nor remotely enriching but “just plain exercises in confusion-ridden, creative self-indulgence. Artistic masturbation! Scrap these damn festivals and National Awards frequently dotted with jury members with zilch qualifications and riddled with politics!
Gimme solid, unpretentious entertainment any day. As for figuring out the meaning of life and stuff, I don’t have to go to those peddlers of corny arthouse stuff, okay? Actually, these film festivals have become this big, cultural and intellectual fashion statement. It makes for great drawing room conversation and gives you this superior animal-aura – the zara hatke culturally-driven creature who views cinema as an agent of change!”
Strong words, huh? So what gives? Are film festivals really unnecessary, irrelevant, art-farty products that pop out once a year to cater to a niche crowd, living in a world of its own with its very special and unique vision, values and agenda? Or are they passionate, progressive symbols (amidst a dangerously complacent, self-congratulatory and regressive landscape) of liberal, humanitarian values embracing simple, startling solutions to an evolved constituency who have eyes to see, a mind to think and a heart to feel? Flashes of truth at 24 seconds per frame?Portraits reflecting sensitivity of the disfranchised of this world and reaffirmation of faith in the human condition....a cinema of artistic sincerity and social significance? Young Behl’s irreverent blast not withstanding (it is a free country, remember?!), if the crowds that throng these meets – across every city that holds their own film festivals – are any indication, these events are neither a waste of time nor money, but a relentless and focused movement forever trying to extract some semblance of order out of the chaos that seems to have totally corrupted the youngest of the art forms – Cinema!
More power to its effort!
Read also: IIPM Reviews, IIPM Review Ranking/Rankings Across India, IIPM Faculty's Review on Thoughts and Courage, IIPM: The B-School with a Human Face and Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012 - IIPM ranks 1st
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