Tender

Date : Nov.17, 2007

Gajju, the Golden Elephant, is beaming from ear to ear, and cannot stop dancing, despite his portly figure.

Even as he is camping in Hyderabad for the 15th International Children’s Film Festival, he has received some very joyful news about some awards won by films made by the Children’s Film Society, India, in international film festivals.

The Hindi film ‘Mahek Mirza’ directed by K Kanade has won the Best Feature Film Award at Arpa International Film Festival 2007 in Hollywood. And two films made by Vinod Ganatra - ‘Lukka Chhuppi’ (Hide-N-Seek) and ‘Heda Hoda’ (Blind Camel) have also won awards at the 40th WORLDFES-HOUSTON 2007 and ‘My Favourite Films Award’ at the 9th Ningbo- China International Children’s Film Festival 2007 respectively.

Two of these films - ‘Mahek Mirza’ and ‘Hide- N-Seek’ have been selected for the Asian Panorama of the ongoing Golden Elephant -15 by the Selection Committee.

‘Mahek Mirza’ is the inspirational story of an eleven-year old girl who wants to become the President of India, finds her dreams being reduced to just dreams, and then realizes the only way to success is hard work and dedication. It stars Shreya Sharma, Anuya Bhagwat, and Madan Deodhar among others. The film had the assistance of an international crew: Music Composer Mathieu Lamboley is based in Paris, Associate Director Matthias Schwelm in Berlin, Second Associate Director Sania Jhankar is studying in New York, and Production Designer Amod Dange is based in Los Angeles

Legendary artist Mario Miranda has done the sketches for this film, the first time he has drawn for a feature film. Kanade has done his Film Direction from FTII and Producers Program from UCLA.

GAJJU’S PROGRAMME TODAY

Gajju has a complaint: three days have already gone by, and the fun has just begun. Everyday is a new experience, and he and his friends are learning new things from the films that have come from so many different countries with diverse cultures. And the merriment also goes on.

After the boisterous dances of the inaugural function, the Lalita Kala Thoranam has been reverberating with dances everyday, and the entire Public Gardens has been lit up to herald the festivities.

Gajju is up on stage everyday, dancing away with the school children and making even those in the audience tap their feet or clap their hands.

About 350 children from nine schools in Hyderabad and neighbouring areas are presenting cultural programmes and dances later this evening from 5.30
p.m. And though the programme is expected to go on for one hour, Gajju often gets carried away and keeps on dancing even after the hour is up.

His thesis film ‘Chaitra’ won Three National Film Awards and Two National Awards at MIFF.

‘Hide-N-Seek’ is the first children’s feature film made at the high altitude, having been shot in Ladakh. After winning Silver Remi Award at the 40th WORLDFES-HOUSTON 2007, the film has been screened at many festivals world over including Chicago, London, Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Cairo etc. It is a thriller about two children who set out to rescue a small servant boy who is kidnapped for no apparent reasons

and two slightly elder boys who take it upon themselves to save him. The star cast consists of Alok Nath, Kamal Chopra, Gary Richardson, Karla Singh, and David Sonam and child artistesAnub Paljor, Stanzin Ladol, Nawang Palkit, Skalzang Angchuk, Shiv Tandon, Vibodh Rath, and Abhishek Chaturvedi. Ganatra’s earlier film, ‘Heda Hoda’ (Blind Camel) has earlier garnered seven international awards at different film festivals and was selected/ invited by about 51 film festivals all over the world. It was the opening film at Hamburg International Film Festival in June 2004. It was also part of the Indian Panorama at the International Film Festival of India held at Goa in 2004. The 9th Ningbo- China International Children’s Film Festival 2007 was organized by The State Administration of Radio Film and Television of China, China Children’s Film Society and Ningbo Association for International Friendly Contacts. The film had earlier won the International Jury Award at the Golden Elephant 14 and a Bronze Award at Cairo International Film Festival and at the Houston Film Festival. Speaking at a press meet here, Ganatra said he had conceived making a film in Ladakh as very few people dared to go there in view of the altitude and the cold. “Ladakh is so different. Its terrain, its climate and the colours are so different there. I have tried to bring them in.”

MIFF TO HIGHLIGHT FILMS
FROM NORTHEAST, J & K

Films Division Chief Producer Kuldeep Sinha claimed today that the documentary cinema movement had seen a revival over the past few years and documentary films were getting greater acceptance among people than ever before.

He announced that the tenth edition of the Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation films (MIFF) in early February will have separate sections of films from the SAARC countries, South Africa, and Brazil.

MIFF is to be held from 3 to 9 February 2008 at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Nariman Point, Mumbai. It is organized by the Films Division, with the support of the Government of Maharashtra.

For the forthcoming edition, 228 films were received from 37 countries for the International competition, and 543 films have been entered in the Indian Competition Section. The selection process is almost over and will be declared shortly.

There will be a section called ‘Best if Festivals’ for selected films from some renowned

OOPS!

Gajju just loves films, and hough he is unhappy whenever a film cannot be shown, he gets excited about the film that is replaces it. The film “Winky’s Horse” (Mischakamp /Holland/2005/90 mins) is being screened at 3.00 p.m. in Raghavendra Theatre in place of ‘Chittigaadi Mahabharatam’.

documentary, short and animation film festivals and Oscar winning and nominated films, a retrospective of films by jury members, a section of Classics featuring films of great masters of documentary films which will have
films made by Great Masters like Bert Haanstra, Robert J. Flaherty, Francois Truffaut, Istvan Szabo, Kristof Zanussi and Ritwik Ghatak. This package will be organized with the support of National Film Archive of India.

There will also be sections for films from the North East and from Jammu and Kashmir, and Glimpses from the archives of the Division, apart from homage to filmmakers who passed away in the recent past

A Film Memoir shows biographical films made on great filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Satyajit Ray, and Bimal Roy, while Adult Cartoons is a collection of animation films made for adult viewers by the National Film Board of Canada.

There is a special section on films on the Second World War with rarest film records of the Indian troops in action at various part of the world during Second World War. This will also feature the battle of Britain , Russia and other major incidents of that period. This package is being organized with the help of the Armed Forces Film & Photo Division, Delhi.

NORWEGIAN FILMMAKER
OVERAWED BY SIZE OF
INDIAN FILM INDUSTRY

Morten Hovland, who is a maker of short films from Norway, is overawed by the huge number of films that are made in so many different languages in India.

But he told a press meet here that around 500 short films are made in his country even as the number of features is around five. Perhaps the fact that one feature and five shorts from Norway are being screened is an indication of the strong movement for short films in that country.

The 38 year old filmmaker’s short film ‘Supernova’ was screened at the Festival in the International Competition. The five-minute film
is about a child’s first encounter with the big questions in life, Morten said. He said he got the idea for the film while watching his little son.

He said in rely to a question that the Norwegian Film Institute helps to mould the future of passionate filmmakers, and colleges like the Lillehammer teach creative software production
for television. There are four production houses making short films.
-Anil Ekbote