Chennai International Film Festival…..

December is a very special month throughout the world. In west it’s time for celebration, vacation,snow and fun. In Chennai it is the season for arts. You can find all music lovers in some sabha or the other to catch their favorite singers live. Everywhere you can find celebration. For me it was little different because of Chennai International Film Festival. I was so happy and enthusiastic from the month starting. This festival is organized by ICAF, Indo Cine Appreciation Foundation. I went all the way to its office in Parsen Apartments to get passes for the festival. To my surprise they asked me from which college I was. I said I am working… I was very happy still I look like a college student. Later I found out that they had issued free passes for them.
I was so thrilled to watch the films. I got special permission from my reporting manager Prasanna to bunk office now and then to watch films. Thanks Prasanna. But all my thrills and expectations turned out to be a big disappointment. This was the 5th year I had attended the festival, I am sorry to say but this was the worst of all. The standard of movie screened every year is going down drastically. You could say only very few movies were good. Out of 120 movies screened I would say not even 20 movies were worth watching. Though story was horrible few had beautiful cinematography. Retrospective movies of Kim ki duk were good. These movies also fall within those twenty movies I mentioned.
2nd International film Festival was the first festival I attended. It was organized in collaboration with NFDC, National Film Development and Corporation. They got extraordinary movies then. In that period hardly twenty movies were not worth watching. They could never get back the standard again. NFDC didn’t take part in the later festivals.
This year Tamil Nadu government had given 25 lakh for the festival, each delegate had paid 500rs and a member paid 300rs to watch movies. Above all they had got hell a lot of sponsors. With all the fund raised they failed to bring in good movies. Movies from France and Germany dominated the festival. Other countries had hardly 1 movie just for the sake of having the count of the countries. To my surprise only 2 Iranian movies were screened.
Movie screening happened in woodlands and woodlands symphony with a time difference of 15min. digital screening was going on in Film Chamber. First people used to sit for the first movie. Within 15 min they realize it’s not worth imme they move to the second movie. I always tried sit there in the hope to learn something. Most people inside the theatre doze off and you could hear people snoring. When you walk out of theatre after the movie you could see lot people waiting out for the next show. They found the second movie was also a waste. In short people sat outside the theatre hoping to see a good movie than inside watching.
The organizers of the festival apart from enjoying the money they receive. They should also concentrate on movies which are being screened. I don’t know on what basis they select the movies for screening. They can organize a committee to select the movies to be screened. In that way they could increase the standard of the festival as such and also a satisfaction to the viewers. Everyone makes it to the festival in between their hectic schedules with lot of expectations. It’s the duty of the organizers to provide them excellent movies. Hope they at least do something in the coming years. I also found the regular festival goers were missing and the response was very low from the film industry. They had tried to fill the hall by providing free passes to students. In short it was dreadful.