“No international film festival makes a difference between the film screenings. In this festival, documentary films are being screened in a separate auditorium. Why can’t they screen them along with the other films so that the audience can see this genre alongwith the rest?” asked Paromita Vohra, a documentary filmmaker from Mumbai.
Her film ‘Morality TV aur Living Loving Jehad: Ek Manohar Kahani’, was screened to a packed house on Sunday but her grouse is documentaries should not have been screened separately in “a corner”.
“Organisers have treated the documentary filmmakers well, like the rest of them. I wish they had done the same with our films,” she said.
Sushma Veerappa, member of ‘Vikalp Bengaluru’, a movement of documentary filmmakers here, which was in charge of curating documentary section for the festival, said it is good to know the organisers - Suchitra Film Society - felt the need for a segment on documentary films.
“We curated the package and therefore we are responsible for the films. They should have been given the deserved screening space, which does not exist,” she said.
Vikalp was given the charge of the technical aspect with the screenings. “Suchitra has been very supportive but we have been firefighting many organisational issues.”
Change attitude
“India is producing some of the documentary films. We need to change the attitude towards them,” said Paromita.
On Monday afternoon. there was a discussion on the form of the documentary films and censorship, between the media persons and Paromita, Arun Khopkar, filmmaker and film academician, and N Vidyashankar, executive director of this year’s festival.

EVENT TODAY

Release of book on Girish Kasaravalli by film critic Aruna Vasudev
Audi-III, Vision Cinemas, KH Road, 4 pm.