Humane Reflections

All Pune International Film Festival interaction sessions are superbly interesting.

All Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) interaction sessions are superbly interesting. There is a toss up of many accents and discussions on challenges of making films in countries still striving to break free of authoritarian shackles. Tuesday’s dialogue involved sharing of perspectives on films that comment on deep social,political and even personal issues,and in effect are reflective of the country’s current realities. Marathi film Mukkti brings its own perspective on the issue of farmer suicides in the state. “You may ask why make this film now?” asked director Machindra More. “It is because farmer suicide is still a burning issue. What we are presenting is not a solution,but a way ahead to stop this.”

Bulgarian director Svetoslav Ovtcharov has come to Pune with his sixth film,Voiceover ,which has earlier traveled to Israel,South Korea,Italy and the USA. The period film relates the true story of a cinematographer who is incarcerated under the Communist regime of pre-unification Bulgaria. “It is a story of the people of my generation,who lived in Communist times,and how normal lives were affected by it,” said Ovtcharov. “It was the time of conformism and compromise,everyday.”

Another director who came with a deeply emotional film was Paco Torres. The Spanish director,born in Seville but a resident of Ireland now,took eight years to develop the script for Magic Of Hope. “I wanted to tell the story of leukemia from a different point of view. I wanted to tell a universal story of optimism. I saw these women get emotional when it was shown at the cinema yesterday,and I felt good,because I felt the idea connected,” he said.

Azerbaijani director Salim Ahmed struggled to communicate in his sparing English,but expressed that his film Sahe is inspired by deep psychology of the human mind. “It is about our fantasies,and our imagination,” he said.

Indian film curator Nirupama Sundar presented the case for the film,Anytime Anywhere ,and commended how the film had broken some myths. She said,”It is a myth that a film which travels to festivals is commercially not viable,while a popularly successful film can’t make it to festivals.”

Later,Chinese producer and writer Yan Wang animatedly presented the premise of her film,Diago ,a picture of identity-crisis faced by one man in the backdrop of the Portuguese handover of Macau. “Its a story about questions we all face at some moment; who am I? What do I have to do?” said she.

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