Plagiarism is creative poverty, says filmmaker

Shooting Stars,’ a national-level short film and documentary competition cum workshop, organised by the Department of Journalism at St Aloysius College in Mangalore, on Saturday, gave a great chance to budding filmmakers to prove their creativity and trade ideas. The surge in short films was evident with 32 short films and documentaries being submitted by the participants from all over the nation.

In his inaugural speech, award winning filmmaker and BBC documentary maker K M Chaitanya said that film is just manipulating the ideas and it is best way to express ourselves. Though there are social media, movie or documentaries are effective tools to reach out people. There is great scope for documentary making. Film producers are also searching for documentary makers. Meanwhile, the avenues of making documentary is also changing, he said. St Aloysius College Principal Rev Fr Dr Swebert D’Silva said: “The importance of a filmmaker is to be innovative”. 

The workshop conducted by Chaitanya titled, “Fiction and non-fiction: Limitations and possibilities” saw an innovative approach to lecturing by screening documentaries.

“Breaking Bombay” on the lives of B-boy artistes in Mumbai made by the students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) enthralled the students. Chaitanya explained it would open to avenues of interest to the student audience and invited a discussion post the documentary where different documentary making factors were dealt upon. It was followed by a screening of stills of an eclectic mix of movies ranging from “Charulatha,” “Dil Se” to “A Few Good Men” and “The Silence of the Lambs”. 

When asked about the legitimacy of Indian movies that were ripping off plots from Hollywood movies, Chaitanya lamented, “Plagarism is creative poverty”. While he admitted that it was rampant in Bollywood, he was quick to point out that action would be taken as India was one of the signatories of the International Copyright Act. 

Prizes

Chethana Media Institute, Thrissur, bagged the Best short film award and Sonia K John, Chethana Media Institute won second best short film award. The best documentary award was won by Yashodhara Roy, St Xavier’s College of Goa and second best documentary was bagged by Vardhan Dhainodhar of St Xavier’s college of Goa. Best theme prize was bagged by Alisha Nazareth of St Xavier’s College, Goa and the Sajid Nazar of Maharaja’s College, Ernakulum won the best cinematography prize.