The auditoriums were packed and there was little activity outside... then suddenly the place came alive, in between the shows, with a book release, discussions over hot capi, on the screenings and the two-year-old festival, and the cameramen chasing celebrities for the photo of the day.
The second Bengalooru International Film Festival — 2008 has a shot in the arm this year. “We have a lot of young people visiting the Festival, said film maker and director of the Festival Girish Kasarvalli. Sitting in the food court, he gave a worldview of the festival. “If we are able to sustain it for the next three years, we will be on the world map of the international film festivals. This year, the response has been phenomenal,” he said.
Book release
Kasarvalli has a book release coming up in the next two days at the festival. On Saturday, Kannada matinee icon late Rajkumar’s wife Parvathamma released the book on M R Vittal, the noted Kannada film director.
“We are going to make it a regular affair, every year, to release books on people, who have contributed to the Kannada film industry. There isn’t much on them. We have also introduced a documentary section from this year,” he said.
“Selection of films for the Festival has been a careful process; a lot of networking, reading about films and feedback from people participating in other film festivals etc helped,” said Mr Kaservalli.
Workshop
On Friday, besides the film screenings there was a workshop by film maker Arun Khokar on the aesthetics of film techniques, press conference by Malayalam film maker Deven Nair and Norelli, an American film maker, who spoke on the issues of migrants in his country, from Mexico, Italy, India and Bangladesh and their identity crisis. Mr Nair dealt more on the problems of marketing his film Atheetham.
He said while Adoor Gopalkrishnan’s films get screened in theatres in Kerala, other film makers don’t always get that kind of opportunity.
Meghnath, an activist and film maker standing with his friends, was waiting for his documentary Gadi Lohardaga Mail to screen, telling the story of the narrow gauge Lohardaga passenger train, through tribal songs. The train became history in 2004.