Now Showing: Jafar Panahi in Jatland

Roughly about 130 km from Chandigarh,the town is no more than a blip on the map,which seems caught in a time warp. But what’s happening inside the college changes that perception. Situated amid factories,a chain of nondescript shops and rows of no-fuss houses,the college has been the epicentre of a slow and steady cultural change — that goes by the name of Haryana International Film Festival (HIFF).

Now in its fourth year,HIFF is an annual feature where the best of world cinema and regional cinema is screened,and filmmaking workshops take place alongside live interactions with actors and filmmakers. “Haryana is on the verge of a cultural revolution,” says festival director Ajit Rai. This year,at the festival,Rai is paying tribute to Mani Kaul and Shammi Kapoor and celebrating the rise of Bhojpuri cinema. He admits that running a festival is not easy,the biggest problem being the fund crunch. “The college has great infrastructure and I have consciously kept government agencies out of it since I don’t want any interference,” he says. The films showcased come from the private collections of Rai,Jansatta editor Om Thanvi,and writers Sanjay Sahay and Vinod Bhardwaj. As for hosting the guests,he resorts to economy travel and the college guesthouse.

This year’s edition,that started on September 30,boasts of several big names,including actor Manoj Bajpayee and the cast of West is West — Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi,Om Puri and Kundan Shah. “We are doing this at an activist level,” says Rai,who is eyeing DAV college in Faridabad for his next project,and aspires to host a Punjab International Film Festival (on the lines of HIFF) in Amritsar and another one in Mathura,for international students. “There is one planned for farmers in Kushinagar,UP,and another for media personnel,” he says,leading the way to the auditorium where the screening of Andy De Emmony’s West is West is going on. We spot its spirited producer,Leslie Udwin,who travelled all the way from Copenhagen. “Like the characters in the film,George Khan’s two wives — Ella and Basheera — here too,language does not come in the way of conversation,” says Udwin.

Known for its rustic nature and orthodox thinking,Jatland (the Jat-dominated belt of Haryana) is perceived to be hardly in touch with the arts and cinema. So when Jamshedpur-based filmmaker,Amit Saran,got a call to take a class in filmmaking in Yamunanagar,he was curious. “The beauty of the place is that people come from different and difficult backgrounds. They are neither trained nor crafted,but they have great stories to tell,” says Saran. His views are echoed by Udwin,who says,“One has to give people a choice against the old,boring and meaningless money-making movies. We are ready,it’s time the distributors get ready too.”

The films screened at the festival include Abbas Kiarostamy’s Certified Copy,Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer,Pedro Almodaver’s Volver,Peter Hsun Chan’s Warlords,Jafar Panahi’s Off Side,Sameera Makhalmalbar’s Blackboard,Wong Kar Wai’s 2046,Bille August’s Goodbye Bafana,Gautam Ghosh’s Moner Manush and Girish Kasaravalli’s Rising the Dreams. The programme also featured grand premier of 10 films,including Kundan Shah’s Three Sisters,Amit Rai’s Road to Sangam,Geetanjali Sinha’s Ye Khula Aasmaan and Basu Chatterjee’s Tiriya Charittar.

As for the net effect,Rai has the figures ready. “In the last four years,more than 700 girls from this college have applied to the FTII,Pune,from a mere 30 applications initially. The number of applications for the film appreciation course have risen from nothing to 80,” says a proud Rai,who also edits the National School of Drama’s magazine.

“Cinema is a visual language and people react to it. We need to uneducate a man to make him learn new things and evolve all over again,” says Shah. Like Rai says,cinema changes people and people change cinema.

The festival is on till October 7.