JOIN USInternational children's film fest a damp squib
Thousands of students, who were excitedly waiting to see some of the best Indian as well as foreign films, as part of 10th Children’s India International Children’s Film Festival (CIICFF) were disappointed as the event turned out to be a damp squib, thanks to organisers who miserably failed to start screening the films even at 10.30 am on Monday.
The films were scheduled to begin at 9.30 am and over 10,000 students had occupied their seats by 9 am in 11 theatres of Mangaluru.
The event was organised by CIICFF, in association with Karnataka Film Academy and district administration, with the support from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Department of Tourism and Pollution Control Board.
Troubleshoot
Sensing some trouble, Udupi Deputy Commissioner Dr Vishal R had cancelled all the shows on Monday and said that he would consider giving permission to organisers if they proved their capabilities on Monday.
In PVR Cinema (Forum Fiza Mall), technicians were trying their best to “switch on” the projector at 10.15 am. On the other hand, in Ramakanthi theatre, the projector had not arrived till 10.30 am while in Big Cinemas (Bharath Mall), the projector arrived at 11 am.
While students from Badria, Crescent and ARK were waiting in Ramakanthi, students from Mullakad and Kavoor were waiting in Adlabs (Bharath Mall). In Central theatre too, the movie did not begin till 10.30 am. In Adlabs, 10 minutes after the operator started the movie and left the venue, there was a problem as the 5-minute movie started repeating again and again. After the same movie was played for five times, the students started shouting and screaming.
“We don’t know how to operate,” a volunteer from St Agnes college, who was in-charge at the Adlabs, said. Quite interestingly, she was given a pen drive with movies and she was not sure whether the movies in the pen drive are the same which they were supposed to screen. Similar was the fate at Suchitra theatre.
According to the schedule, the first movie to be screened was “Aata Paata,” of 145 minute duration. However, the movie stopped abruptly after four minutes.
Hence, the volunteers changed the movie, which was a cartoon. As soon as the cartoon movie started, the students started to scream - “Change the movie... change the movie... duk, duk, duk..” --- in rhythm. There were 809 students in Suchitra from St Aloysius High School, Mahesh and Holy Family school. Chaos at Suchitra continued even at 11 am.
“The students are feeling restless and we don’t know what to do,” said Deeksha, a BCom second year student from St Agnes, a volunteer who was holding three DVDs, out of which one was not working. Though students at Prabhath theatre were lucky to some extent as a movie screening began at 10.30 am, there was a problem with audio.
Why theatres?
Most of the teachers, whom this correspondent spoke to, sought to know the reason behind organising the film festival in theatres, as theatres were used only for seating and the projectors, speakers as well as DVDs or pen drives were brought from outside. Most of the theatres could not use the facility provided by organisers as the theatres have “J2K” system and the facility provided by film fest organisers was “UFO,” which lacked compatibility with the theatre facilities. “Though we had brought the same to the notice of the authorities concerned in a meeting chaired by the deputy commissioner 20 days ago, no steps were taken till yesterday evening,” Ramakanthi Theatre partner R Vasanth Rao rued.
Why not in schools?
As the projector, speakers as well as DVDs/pen drives were supplied by organisers, the films could have been screened in schools/colleges itself.
What is the point in bringing thousands of students to theatres where organisers have not made any prior arrangements, a visibly upset teacher from St Aloysius High School said.
Another teacher said that students were dropped at Nehru Maidan and they were made to walk to the theatres from there.
“It was a herculean task to take the students from Nehru Maidan to theatres and if something (accident) happens to the students on the way, who is responsible?,” another teacher questioned. Yet another teacher flayed the organisers as she had to pay tickets for all the students for dropping students from Mullakad to Big Cinemas.
Apparently, the conductor was not aware that they were supposed to drop the students free of cost. When queried about the chaos in the theatres, a top official from the district said that if the district administration had received any clues earlier, the event could have been cancelled. “Having inaugurated the film fest in such a grand manner, we will try to screen the movies at least for a day,” the official said.
When contacted, Children’s India President N R Nanjunde Gowda said that one of the main reasons for the chaos was lack of dedicated volunteers. “Though I visited the district 14 times for preparation, I could not meet volunteers, who were supposed to have managed the show, even once,” he said and added that the different formats in which the films were received was also one of the reasons for chaos, which lacked compatibility with theatre facilities.