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A report on 7th Osian Cinefan Asian Film Festival 2005, New Delhi
(15-24 July,2005) by film critic Lalit Rao
India is a land of contrasts.The same can be said about its film
festivals too.There is a government run film
festival-International Film Festival of India,held annually in
Goa,which tries to compete with those run by erudite film
professionals like Kolkata Film Festival and International Film
Festival of Kerala.It is a different story altogether that the
political powers looking after Indian cultural affairs wish to
make a Cannes out of Goa film festival.This struggle for
supremacy is taking place at a time when the number of film
festivals in India is on a rise. One question needs to be asked
by everyone concerned with cinema. Why should a film festival be
organized in New Delhi ? The answer is simple. If a film festival
is organized in New Delhi,it is relatively easy to get important
festival films as various embassies as well as diplomatic
missions guarantee that good films are brought for screenings.
New Delhi also needs a film festival as the annual International
Film Festival of India was moved to Goa. This worried New
Delhi’s film aficionados to such an extent that it was felt
in many of New Delhi’s cultural circles that no film
festival would ever be organized in Indian capital. Their fears
were laid to rest with the establishment of Osian Cinefan Asian
Film Festival,a festival whose primary aim is to acquaint Indian
audiences with prominent Asian films.
This year,it was for the 2nd time that Cinefan collaborated with
Osian-a leading Indian auction house for 7th Osian Cinefan Asian
Film Festival 2005 New Delhi (15-24 July,2005). Osian Cinefan
Asian Film Festival is India’s only film festival which
enjoys tremendous political patronage.This event saw more
guests,more films and above all more audience.This time it was
decided to organize this festival at a bigger venue-Sirifort
which houses 4 auditoriums. This enabled many film buffs to watch
in large numbers latest and best Asian films.There were many
young new faces seen in the festival. This can be considered as
one of this festivals’ major successes. Different people
come to Osian Cinefan with different ideas related to cinema.
Many cinephiles believe that it offers the best of Asian cinema
for local audience. Osian Cinefan Asian Film festival is a much
sought after event for International guests notably film festival
programmers. They are of the opinion that it gives them a chance
to see the Best of Indian cinema.
A record of sorts was created when 23 Indian films were selected
in 2 different sections namely “Indian competition” and
“Indian Osean”.
The ten day festival was inaugurated on July 15 by Delhi chief
minister Sheila Dixit.Cannes 2005 prix du jury winner
“Shanghai Dreams” by Chinese auteur Wang Xiaoshuai was
chosen as its opening film.Wang Xiaoshuai is no stranger to
Cinefan. Most of his films have been part of past Cinefan
editions. It was quite natural that his film was chosen as the
opening film. “Shanghai Dreams”,set in the 1980s deals
with a poignant moment in Chinese history when countless workers
and their families were asked to settle in the poorer, barren
regions of the country. It focuses on the displaced lives of a
generation including a father and a young girl who had to move
from Shanghai in the 1960s to the underdeveloped Guizhou
province. Things change when China enters a new epoch and the
dejected father longs to return to Shanghai. In the process he
purposely destroys his 19-year-old daughter's first love with a
local young man. The film is a realistic portrayal of the
conflicts of human dreams.
Asian Competition : Asian Competition featured an assorted blend
of films from different countries including India.Most of these
films were having their world or Asian Premieres at Osian Cinefan
2005.They included Vimukthi Jayasundara's Camera d'Or winner
“The Forsaken Land” and Iranian director Rakshan
Bani-Etemad’s latest film “Gilaneh”.Kohei
Oguri’s “The buried forest” is an enchanting tale
of fantastic stories told by some girls from a mountainous
Japanese town. These stories offered a stark contrast to the
mundane world inhabited by the adult people of the town.This film
is an honest attempt to prove how storytelling can enhance our
daily lives.In “Magdalena,The unholy Saint”,one of
Philippine cinema’s best directors Laurice Guillen talked of
human emotions like love, pain, faith, foregiveness,sin and
salvation.Her film explores the theme of the Biblical
Magdalene-the prostitute who became a saint.Magdalena denounces
the prevailing hypocrisy evident in churches all-around
Philippines.Male Homosexuality,a taboo theme for Turkish films
was taken up by Ugur Yucel in “Toss Up”-a bitter
account of emotional alienation.It takes place in three different
visual and cultural atmospheres.“Toss up”-an impressive
debut film,is a harrowing tale of two soldiers who find that the
war has transformed their lives outright.The universal theme of
war was also brought forward by Ho Quang Minh in his Vietnamese
film “A time far past” although it remains in
background.The film,based on a novel by Le Lu’s famous book
“A distant past” depicts the opening up of a new
Vietnam after its post-war isolation.The film charts the life of
Sai-a young Vietnamese communist youth whose life runs parallel
to the historic developments moulded by the war."The
Hunter" can be termed as Kazakh cineaste “Serik
Aprymov”’s most ambitious film to date.It depicts the
initiation of a village boy Erken into the hunter’s way of
life.The film is a brilliant Kazakh interpretation of the classic
coming-of-age film.“The Hunter” combines mythological
elements and a realist narrative mode in order to express the
complexity and contradiction of two worlds: that of men and the
more harmonious one of the beasts.In “Tear of the
cold”,Azizollah Hamidnezhad gives a touching picture of
Kurdish inhabited area of Iran.His film is a piercing story about
the futility of civil war.Parsa Piroozfar is impressive as
Private Kiyani who embodies unflustered calmness and humanism.
Equally astounding is the performance by Golshifteh Farahani as
Ronak an energetic Kurdish shepherd girl whose live is
intertwined in an ingenuous love tale.
Indian competition : Indian competition always tends to be a
reflection of a chaotic,anarchic,passionate stories shot in a
sprawling country.7th Osian Cinefan film festival organized a
veritable feast of Indian films.They came from all corners of the
country,in its many different languages.These films gave vent to
anger against the ways of society sanctified by patriarchal
traditions.“After the night ….dawn” by Sandip Ray
based on a famous Bengali novel by Narayan Ganguly, is a gripping
psychological drama about a close knit family whose relationships
disintegrate after an earthquake.Set in Himalayas,Sandip Ray
recounts a veritable fight for survival among the members of a
family when it is hit by a severe shortage of food and
water.“Raching Silence” is a unique film about noise
pollution.In this film,“Jahar Kanungo” uses sound as
noise,sound as rhythm and its cinematic expression.His film
explores the sensitivities of a young male protagonist to the
phenomenon of sound in its urban as well as rural
manifestation.According to the director his film is the story is
of a selfish creature who neither gives anything to the city nor
to the village.He is finally rejected by both.
Asian Frescoes : Asian Frescoes as Cinefan’s largest section
screened 23 films which seized the magic and adventure of Asian
cinema.“One night” is the maiden directorial venture by
Iran’s best known actress Niki Karimi.This underground film
tells the story of a fearless girl who spends a night hitching
rides through the deserted streets of Teheran.She comes across
three men,each with a different story to tell. “One
night’s” strength lies in depicting feminine
sensibilities vis à vis unstable status of male,female
relationships.One more film dealt with the same theme involving
human relationships but on a different level.Taiwanese auteur
Tsai Ming Liang offered his version of tragicomic reflections of
the decline of human relationships.His impressive film, “The
wayward cloud” gives us an idea about how pornography has
become a modern cultural obsession. It develops in present day
Taiwan as an implausible love story in the background of a severe
global water shortage which is a metaphor for what people lack in
life. The film abounds in the usual leitmotifs of Tsai’s
provoking universe. They include claustrophobia and running
water. This impossible screen love story is an ironic tale which
manages to our attention to alienation, loneliness and the
people’s inability to connect.
Indian Osean: This section featured films made in various Indian
regional languages. Most of these films highlighted the plight of
Indian women who are ready to challenge orthodoxy.
‘Chausar’, by noted dramatist “Sagar
Sarhadi”, is a resonant and hard hitting woman oriented tale
based on mythological story “Mahabharata”.It delineates
the abusive treatment meted out to women in the interiors of
India especially in the villages and small towns. In an
oppressive society,Sagar Sarhadi exhorts women to engage
themselves in their own fights to tackle the menace of a
tyrannical system. His film celebrates the liberation of
womanhood from the clutches of a repressive society.
Carte Blanche:Fortissimo Films, one of the world’s leading
film sales organization,Fortissimo films has always aided Cinefan
film festival to screen best films.The passionate response from
Cinefan viewers inspired Osian Cinefan authorities to constitute
a unique section of films owned by Fortissimo. “East Palace
White Palace”-a controversial Chinese film with political
and artistic implications by Zhang Yuan,proved to be a veritable
feast for hungry eyes.The film depicts a nightlong interrogation
of a gay man who is detained in a public park by a policeman. The
political ramifications at play,imply not only a broader
indictment of the repressive regime in China,but also address the
issue of intolerance of human differences everywhere. “East
Palace West Palace” has been hailed at various film
festivals as the first ever gay film in Communist China.It
triggered the wrath of censorship in communist China, and copies
started to circulate in the West only after Zhang Yuan managed to
smuggle the film’s negative out of China into France.
Fonds Sud Cinema:A selection of films. 2005 marks the 20th
anniversary of Fonds Sud Cinema-a film finance scheme which has
fostered cinematic production in Africa,Asia and Latin America.
This fund has undoubtedly made its mark on the international
cinematic landscape. Fonds Sud cinema is funded in equal
proportion by French ministry of cultural affairs and the Centre
National de la Cinematographie (CNC).Its annual budget is around
2.5 Million euros.This year’s selection of Fonds Sud cinema
films included 8 astonishing films displaying a delicate choice
of themes in their study of devastated universe. One of these
films “Cry no more” by “Narjiss Nejjar” is a
sad tale of Berber women subjected to sexual servitude who
attempt to break away from this curse. Nargis Nejjar portrays a
real berber village Tizi where only paying male clients have the
right to enter.The film is a well crafted melancholic tale
depicting the harsh lives of women forced into sexual slavery.
“Cry no more” is a passionate plea for women’s
emancipation who are engaged in a fierce battle to free
themselves from the clutches of male dominated society.
Tribute to Hou Hsiao Hsien : A special feature of Cinefan film
festival is its endeavor to familiarize Indian audiences with the
works of various masters of Asian cinema in their presence.In
2004,Cinefan invited acclaimed Iranian cineaste “Mohsen
Makhmalbaf”.This year Cinefan invited great Taiwanese master
Hou Hsiao Hsien for a tribute.The master was himself present in
New Delhi to introduce his last film “Café Lumiere”.
Hou Hsiao Hsien,ably assisted by Chris Berry found time to
interact with audience.All of his films especially “A time
to live and a time to die” created an everlasting impact on
festival audience as family structure portrayed in his films has
a lot in common with Indian psyche.
Special screenings For Cinefan 2005,a special independent section
featuring films by masters of cinema was created in order to make
viewers aware of their personal vision.A special mention must be
made of 2 films which formed part of this section.In
“Mama’s Guests”, veteran Iranian new wave icon
“Dariush Mehrjui” created a sense of nostalgia for
certain cherished traits of Iranian culture which are passing
away fast. His film portrays an Iranian mother who receives a
newly married couple at her house for the first time.
“Mama’s Guests” depicts how such an arrival sets
off a series of chaotic, humorous and poignant atmosphere in the
entire neighbourhood. Atif Yilmaz-a veteran Turkish filmmaker can
rightly be termed as “Turkish Rohmer” as most of his
films are young at heart. His latest offering “Borrowed
Bride” as an innovative tale of forbidden love. It can also
be termed as an unorthodox love story framed against a background
of dual identity. “Borrowed Bride” tells the tale of a
"borrowed bride" Emine who is hired to tutor the young
and playfully naïve Ali before he gets married to his fiancée.
Emine accepts the offer to be a "borrowed bride" before
her lover Hasan gets out of jail. But love takes no notice of
Hasan, or tradition, and they become lovers, against all odds
with fatal consequences.
Closing film : If there is one Indian filmmaker who makes people
proud of the great Indian cinematic tradition,it is undoubtedly
Buddhadeb Dasgupta.7th Osian Cinefan Asian film festival chose
his latest offering “Memories in the mist” as its
closing film. His film is the story of a father and a son against
the backdrop of two different times and places.They parted from
each other never to meet again …yet their thirst for life
and the desperation for telling unspoken words made them meet in
the strangest of situations.Buddhadeb Dasgupta talks about the
strange,ever changing human relationships,combined with the
grandeur of traveling theater troupe.“Memories in the
mist” is embroidered with a series of surreal sequences
tinged with a sense of humor.
A brief word about the festival’s achievements.7th Osian
Cinefan Asian Film Festival 2005 would long be remembered for
making India’s young generation aware of Indian auteur
cinema’s contribution towards cinema as a worthy art.To a
great extent,Osian Cinefan Asian Film Festival 2005 changed the
cinematic tastes of a generation fed up with mindless violence
and sex shown in Bollywood cinema.
7th Osian Cinefan Asian Film Festival 2005 Awards:
Asian Competition
Best Film :
Rindu kami padamu (Of Love and Eggs) (Indonesia),Dir Garin
Nugroho
Best Actor :
Parsa Pirouzfar-Tear of the Cold,Iran,Azizollah Hamidnezhad
Best Actress :
Zhang Jingchou-Peacock,China,Gu Changwei
Special Jury Prize for Soundtrack:
The Forsaken Land,Sri Lanka,Vimukthi Jayasundara
Indian Competition
Best Film :
Reaching Silence,Jahar Kanungo
Best Actress :
Trina Neelina Banerjee,Reaching Silence,Jahar Kanungo
Special Mention :
Roopa Ganguly for her presence in Critical Encounter,Sekhar Das
Best Actor :
Sabhyasachi Chakraborthy,After the Night ... Dawn,Sandip Ray
Special Jury Prize :
Here,Soojit Sarkar
FIPRESCI Award :
Tear of the Cold,Iran,Azizollah Hamidnezhad
NETPAC Award :
The Black and White Milk Cow,China,Yangjin
Critics Award for Indian Film :
Yesterday and Tomorrow,Ruchi Narain
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