Monday, October 25, 2010

Mumbai Film Festival 2010 Diary - Day 3 & 4...

Day 3...

Today I started with Dimension Mumbai  24 Shorts by young talents. The coordinator of this competition said that there were around 140 entries and they short listed 24 amongst them. It's good to see young talents shorts along with the films which have been accepted worldwide as an extraordinary product. Today when I got into the theater it was houseful and it was full with youngsters and critics. I got the corner seat and got angry with myself. When month back ago MAMI made an announcement about this competition I had decided that this year I will be sending my entry to this competition but somehow I couldn't manage it. If I could have done that, who knows I would have been invited here as an guest to present for first screening of my movie in International film festival. But now thats a past now. I better give a shot next time. I saw all 24 shots and amongst the some were really good though frankly speaking there was not a single unique concept presented by any of them.  But I must mentioned here about Maaneque, Mumbaikar Ganesh, Dahihandi and The endless life which stood separately in this competition. I was very disappointed thinking that, there are so many youngsters who can really give something new and extraordinary but it's now coming out through this festival. I was a part of the theater group in my college. We used to take part in many one act play competitions and get amazed all the time how can someone come up with such a strong script. That I haven't seen here this time. Last 2 years there were some brilliant ideas presented by youths but I don't know why this time that charm was not there.There were some well made films but the subjects and treatment was known to all. Anyways let's hope next time will have some good stuff.  Congratulations to all.

Lets move to now next film which was from Georgia called 'SUSA' by Rusudan Pirveli. This is a story of a young boy (Susa) living somewhere outside the capital city of Tbilisi who day dream to escape the reality of his poverty. It's a 85 mints movie which is worth watching the struggle of Susa. After this I moved to screen 4 where they were screening Yoshishinge Yoshida's reminiscent of the great Hollywood melodramas of the 1960's, 'Akitsu Hot Springs' which was embellished with a plaintive string-laden music score. The next one was Biutiful, which I missed it day before yesterday. Uxbal is criminal who makes his money off the underground factories in Barcelona. His steadily expanding criminal activities include the Senegalese drug mafia, Chinese sweatshops and even a scam to develop a plot that belong to cemetery where his father's grave is. After watching this movies I realized that why people were fighting day before yesterday to watch this. It was really worth watching movie which started at 10.30pm and got over around 00.45am. All the characters of Uxbal family was superb. I must mentioned here the role played by Uxbal two kids were awesome. The way they have played their character, u will surely fall in love with them, which I did.    

Day 4...

Monday starts with "Next year in Bomaby'. This documentary is based on the lives of the BEne Israeli community of Indian Jews who sought asylum from religious persecution in India over 2000 years ago. It's a well researched and well made documentary which provoke you to think about this community and help them out. The best thing was today the entire team was present for the screening and we got an opportunity to interact with Producer, Director and two key characters of this movie. I felt that every small community also  has some significance to our large community. Their economical, social and cultural contribution to the local communities is lot less than any other original big community of this place.

Though it's an international film festival and 90% movies you can watch are from different countries there where some special screening of India movies too. Today from that category we watched Mrunal Sen's Khandhar. I know that I don't have to give introduction about him and his films. He is master, that's it I can say about him. Really enjoyed the film. The show was houseful and because of  overwhelming response the organizers announced one more screening of this film at 10.30pm on same day. Anu Kapoor, Pankaj Kapoor, Nasiruddin Shah and Shabana Azami what an amazing star-cast. They all have done great job. When you watch these peoples old and even new movies you get an answer why these are not in a race of award. I feel they all are above that. They don't need certificate (award) that they have done good job. For them it's ongoing process from long time and without any hurdles they are faithful to their work. One more thing is I never found Shabana Azami so beautiful before this. Hats off to all. 

After this I thought I will watch Marathi movie today but I end up watching very nice French movie called 'The Killer Queen'. Her first true passion is poker. It's all about how her passion quickly turns to an unhealthy addiction that beings to eat away at her life. It's a well made 96mints film which is lead role (Mathilde) played by Adrienne Paul who have done justice with this character. That's it for today :)