Catch a Show at Ceasefire

Despite a Hezbollah truce in the background, there8217;s a lesson for IFFI from Israel

This piece could well have been titled 8220;Films in time of War8221;. As the Haifa International Film Festival went through in the week between October 7 and 14, an uneasy ceasefire imposed by the UN between Israel and the Hezbollah had just about prevailed during that period.

It had been an uneasy time for the festival organisers, particularly in its run-up. As Haifa festival director Pnina Blayer told me: 8220;My team and I had to keep choosing between personal survival and festival work, in the midst of air-raid sirens, ducking in and out of bomb-shelters.8221;

That the festivalwallahs were able to hold the festival, that too on the planned dates, said much for their resilience and work-ethic.

Haifa is a lovely city, modern for most part, its posh areas located high on Mount Carmel which slopes gently on to the Mediterranean Sea on three sides, yielding to white beaches. On the plaza of the festival complex each balmy evening, live bands played to the crowd late into the night.

Haifa is the second oldest film fest in the Middle-East. It procures some of the best festival movies. Thus one got to see Ken Loach8217;s Wind That Shakes The Barley, and Bruno Dumont8217;s Flanders, both winners of top prizes at Cannes 2006. Also on view was Allen Coulter8217;s Hollywoodland the closing film at Haifa 8217;06 for which Ben Affleck had won the best-actor award at Venice just two months back.

How does Haifa Fest manage to get top films for showing, year after year, with just Pnina Blayer attending other fests on its behalf ? She replied simply : 8220;Mostly, because of the leg-work that I do at festivals like Cannes, and the contacts that I8217;ve built up in Europe, UK and USA.8221; There8217;s a lesson for us here: Despite sending out big delegations each year to places like Cannes, our own IFFI remains mostly starved of new, big releases worldwide.

A Chinese entry was Summer Palace, which had earlier made the official selection at Cannes. The story is around the life of a young girl who comes from a small town to Beijing University and can8217;t come to terms with her sexuality. It also casts a glance at Tian an-Men incident.

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It8217;s sad that our films8217; presence in Haifa remains marginal. This year, only Shonali Bose8217;s Amu was entered. The print of Buddhadeb Dasgupta8217;s Kaalpurush did not make it to Haifa at the last moment. Neither did Rituparno Ghosh8217;sDosar enter, despite being strongly recommended.

As for the Mumbai producers, one wonders whether they are even aware where Israel is! India8217;s flag at Haifa was kept aloft by former festival director, Malti Sahai, who was member of the main competition jury this year. She8217;s promised to curate a package of Indian films for Haifa next year.

The Indian film industry needs to work hard to secure a presence in Israel. I was told that our films do not have a regular outlet in that country. Big B may be the best-known Indian in Egypt, but in neighbouring Israel, not many have heard of him. The socio-cultural ties between India and Israel are on the rise, can we get in on screen please?