“Recreating Cinematic Culture”. That was the motto of the 9th Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema, which kept thousands of people captivated for ten days from July 20 to 29 at the Siri Fort Complex in New Delhi.

And going by the enthusiastic response of an ever-growing audience for good cinema – the kind of which can happen in both parallel and commercial environments just as bad cinema can happen in both of them – and a more and more professional handling of the organisational matters of the festival, the festival seemed to have been able to move this year quite admirably towards achieving its goal as enshrined in its motto.

Some highly-interesting films from all over the continent, as also the Arab world that straddles parts of both Asia and Africa, a number of illuminating discourses, a Talent Campus programme to unearth new talents in filmmaking and a large international contingent made the festival a true hub of cinema from its target region.

So, what makes the festival a success story, even as there is buzz that Vasudev has decided to call it a day as the director of the festival that she has built brick by brick in all these nine years, for reasons not known.

Obviously, the films screened by it. And this year was no exception, though the nearly 140 films screened in ten days were more than enough to disorient the film buffs who more often than not did not what to choose for viewing and what not with interesting movies being screened simultaneously at different theatres. There were five award juries in the festival, which proved to be an added attraction for filmmakers to participate in it.

The cinema from the Arab World were particularly striking for their effort to reflect a gamut of issues and emotions related to the lives of the people living in their countries. And if one thought that the issues attracting attention of filmmakers from this part of the world would be mostly related to terrorism and the associated debates for obvious reasons, one was amply proved wrong.

Take for example Qas Wi Lazk (Cut And Paste), whose director Hala Khalil from Egypt used one of the commonest phrases uttered by computer users for her film’s title to aptly describe modern human lives where life has become all about making adjustments with the circumstances. Khalil being a woman director from a Muslim-dominated country was not an exception in the festival.

Iran’s Niki Karimi, who also faces frequent censorship problems in her country, came up with her second directorial venture at the festival in as many years. Her Chand Rooz Bad (A Few Days Later) provides a minimalist portrayal of a modern woman's life as she is caught between her career and relationships.

One of the outstanding films in the festival was the Korea-France co-production Hyazgar (Desert Dream) by Zhang Lu, and it was not surprising that it ended up winning the top prize at the festival. Michel Kammoun’s Lebanon-France co-production Falafel focused on the impact of war on the people of Lebanon after the war has come to an end.

One film that is sure to find a connect among Indian viewers if they get to see it was Indonesia’s Kala (The Secret) by Joko Anwar. The director cleverly leaves the country where the story unfolds unnamed, implying it could be anywhere. And the subject: moral policing, something which is becoming a scourge across the world wherever any form of religious extremism exists.

Among the new Indian films screened at the festival, the cherry on the cake was definitely Rajat Kapoor’s Mithya (The Imposter Who Wasn't). Influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha, this third directorial venture by Kapoor sees him rise far above his first two directorial ventures Raghu Romeo and Mixed Doubles as a visual storyteller.

Suhail Tatari’s Bhairavi, Navdeep Singh’s Manorama Six Feet Under, Arindam Mitra’s Shoonya (Zero Zone), Shivajee Chandrabhushan’s black and white Frozen (all Hindi) and Suman Ghosh’s Bengali Podokkhep (Footsteps) were interesting debuts by their directors, while Tamil director Ameer Sultan showed his increasing control over the medium in Paruthiveeran.

Debutant Anish Ahluwalia’s Kya Tum Ho (Are You There?) sought to tell the story of the impact of the Internet and technology on modern lives in a subdued and subtle manner, while Hong Kong director Daniel Wu did the same through his “mockumentary” The Heavenly Kings.

There were compelling films galore in the festival – at least compelling in concept if not in execution. China-Japan co-production The Go Master could manage a nice balance of the two in telling the true story of Wu Qingyua, a master of the ancient game of Go, and his passion for the game in an often-bellicose environment.

Goutam Ghose came up with Bengali Kalbela (Calcutta, My Love), which is based on parts of a Sahitya Akademi Award-winning novel of the same name by Somoresh Majumdar. A throw back into the 1960s and 1970s, the times when Ghose himself was a young man, the film narrates a compelling love story in the backdrop of the Naxalite movement which the protagonist finds himself unwittingly sucked into.

However, two veteran directors from India, Malayalam director Rajeev Nath who tried his hand in Hindi through Anubhav, and Amol Palekar who sought to shake off the disappointment of Paheli by making the Marathi Thang (Quest), hugely disappointed filmgoers by their lacklustre works.

The festival was not all about new and old feature films – it also focused on a few very interesting documentaries that has subjects relating to the increasing intolerances of all kinds in modern societies.

For example, if Haobam Paban Kumar’s AFSPA 1958 recounted the horrific days of violence after the rape and killing of Thangjam Manorama Devi in Manipur three years ago allegedly by Central security force personnel, Sanjay Kak’s How We Celebrate Freedom sought to explore the meaning of freedom in the context of modern-day Kashmir. James Longley’s Iraq in Fragments too offered in interesting – despite being American – viewpoint on the impact of the violence in Iraq on its people.

Let the Osian’s Cinefan roll on, as a premier platform to showcase Asian and Arab Cinema, minus the minor irritants like these. And every cinegoer will hope for that.