For a dose of reality

The week-long ‘Film Harvest’, that was held recently, was an effort to promote good cinema.

The jury that was on the selection committee made sure that they chose movies from across the globe and each film had a story to tell.

 It was steeped in reality and did well to evoke a good response from movie buffs in the City.

On the selection committee were Srinivasa Santhanam, Uzma Irfan, Girish Kasarvalli and Ricky Kej and they chose films that would portray world cinema at its best. 

About what went into the process of selecting the films, Srinivasa Santhanam, programmer-cum-advisor of ‘Film Harvest’ said that the idea was to promote good and meaningful cinema.

“We hand-picked eight foreign films and three Indian films, including a Kannada film. We didn’t want to include commercial films. Our aim was to promote popular films that reflected art and cinema,” he said.

There were couple of noteworthy films such as ‘Las Acacias’, an Argentinian cinema, that was based on a cabin truck; ‘Michael’ was based on child abuse and ‘The Kid with a Bike’ was about a young boy whose father sells his son’s bike for money and then goes missing.

The child tries to find his father and get back his bike, which is precious to him. “Different subjects were chosen carefully keeping the sensitivities of the people in mind,” adds Srinivasa.

Girish Kasarvalli’s Kannada film Kanasemba Kudreyaneri’ was also shown during the festival.

“International film festivals are regularly held in Delhi and Mumbai but not in Bangalore. So we wanted to popularise that here. Our idea was to bring together as many countries and languages on a common platform. We wanted the audience to think and react to various subjects,” explained Girish.

Uzma Irfan, director, Corporate Communications, Prestige Group said she wanted to do something to mix art and cinema.

“We wanted people to enjoy the best of both worlds,” she said.

Those who came to the film festival said all the films were a treat. Sushma Mohan said. “It’s not always that one gets to see good cinema here in the City. The films dealt with subjects that were very realistic.”