Cinema Paradiso

Into its third year, this year8217;s BYOFF is expected to get wider participation from the northeastern states and Rajasthan. The underlying charter8212;8216;8216;no entry forms, no selection procedure, no competition, no juries, no bureaucracy, no hierarchy, just films8221;8212;that brought together a group of cinephiles from across India to start BYOFF in 2004, still forms the bedrock of the beach festival. 8216;8216;It began when a group of people interested in cinema felt the need for an alternative space for independent film-makers, a non-sarkari affair,8217;8217; says Ranojit Dasgupta, a Kolkata-based film editor and one of the organisers. The concept took off well and many film-makers who have screened their films in the last two years, have now become volunteers.

National Award-winning film-maker Supriyo Sen brought his documentary to BYOFF after winning the BBC Award at the Commonwealth Film Festival in Manchester in 2003 and the Golden Conch for the Best Long Documentary at Mumbai International Film Festival MIFF 2004.

It didn8217;t take much for him to succumb to BYOFF. 8216;8216;The atmosphere is fantastic, what with the Bay of Bengal lolling in front of you. And without any red tape or hierarchy, it8217;s a pure celebration of cinema,8217;8217; says Sen. The five-day festival, nicknamed the Woodstock of cinema by some, has attracted film-makers like Rakesh Sharma, Sunny Joseph and Anand Patwardhan.

The first edition of BYOFF saw a collection of films rejected by MIFF 2004 make its way to Puri. The censorship fiasco at MIFF, in a way, triggered BYOFF. Amlan Das, a Kolkata-based film aficionado, who8217;s been associated with the festival from its early days, says BYOFF has unearthed talents that would otherwise have remained undiscovered because of the stringent screening criterion at state-sponsored festivals.

Sample some of the titles from the first year: Nine-year-old Kabir Aslam8217;s effortless narrative Where Is My Brother?; Sharmy Pandey8217;s Ebong Falguni, a provocative take on the works of poet Falguni Roy; Bony Kosaya, Siddharth Tripathy8217;s sketch of heartland life in Raigarh through the biographies of three musicians; Sammit Das8217; At The Midnight Hour, documenting the lives of Indians and Pakistanis in New York; and Soumya Mukhopadhyay8217;s tribute to Jean-Luc Godard with Death of JLG: The Calcutta Chapter. With reels from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata, and Raipur8217;s Jandarshan which supports the involvement of SC/ST students in filmmaking, BYOFF is all about identifying new talents and renewing faith in the veterans.

8216;8216;The novel treatment by a young generation of filmmakers has been a revelation. Where else do you think films from remote areas of Rajasthan would find a platform?8217;8217; says film-maker Shekhar Das, whose Mahulbanir Sereng was screened last year.

But BYOFF8217;s open-ended policy that allows any film in any format to be screened at the two beach tents, throws up an obvious question: How does it ensure quality control? Activist film-maker Zoe Young, in a review for metamute.org, contends8212;8216;8216;A few films are poorly made, but hint at aspirations; others are simply bad8217;8217;.

Most BYOFF enthusiasts offer a different rationale. 8216;8216;India makes about 900 films a year, and not even two make it to Cannes. Does it mean that the rest of the films are bad? For a festival in which anybody can participate, a couple of poorly-made films is a risk one has to take,8217;8217; says Sen.

The organisers talk about the audience being the best censors, and underline other options available for those unwilling to sit through a film8212;dinner at the nearby Pink House restaurant, informal interactions on the beach and impromptu jam sessions where attending musicians bring on the mood and the melody.

BYOFF, at Chakrateertha Road, Puri, from February 21 to 25. For details log on to byofilmfestival.com