Prabhat Film Festival FTII, Pune, May 7 to 12, 2007 A Report
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The students of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) organized the Prabhat film festival based on the theme of Peace. This film festival brought together the student filmmaking fraternity across Asia, where in many film schools participated like: Beijing Film Academy, Communication University of China from China; The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, School of Film and Television, Hong Kong Baptist University, School of Communication, Department of Cinema and Television, from Hong Kong; Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, National Institute of Design, Prasad Film School, Jamia Milia Islamia, from India; Tel Aviv University, Film and Television Department, from Israel; Akademija Umetnosti BK from Serbia and Ngee Ann Polytechnic from Singapore. The main screening venues for the film festival were FTII Main Theatre, National Film Archive of India (NFAI) auditorium, with a special screening of Sant Tukaram at the Wisdom Tree. The opening ceremony was held at the Main Theatre and the festival started with A Certain Liberation by Yasmine Kabir. Other than the films from the various film schools, which were screened as packages, there were around 22 documentary films from India and abroad. Under Construction (UC) contributed to this section with 8 films. Every night saw a different cultural event, which were held at the main theatre or under the Wisdom Tree after the film festival. This began with the memorable Magic Lantern Show also called Shambarik Kharolika. This animated show of hand painted slides made more complete with action, dialogue and background music, dates itself back to 1885 (much before motion cinema started in India). On the days that followed there were different programs like a homage to Prabhat Studios, Maharstrian Folklore performance by Sahir Azad Naikwadi, and the closing ceremony was with the Sarod recital by Zarin Sharma. Parallel to the film festival there were different seminars on different topics like: ‘Storytelling in the age of new technologies’, ‘Why make/ who sees/ who funds short films’, ‘Scope of film schools’ and ‘Interrogating Political Films’. Some of those who spoke and moderated the seminars included Gargi Sen, Madushree Dutta, R V Ramani, along with many more filmmakers who attended the festival on different days from all over the country. The film festival saw a considerable amount of students everyday at each venue, where in the people from the Pune city also attended. Under Construction had also set up a display of its films at the Cineshop, in front of the main theatre. Cineshop was planned as a space for independent filmmakers, producers and distributors to exhibit, promote and sell their films, also as a forum to discuss issues surrounding independent filmmaking.
A Certain Liberation / Yasmine Kabir / Bangladesh / 37 mins / 2003 (Under Construction) Art in Exile / Nidhi Tuli and Ashraf Abbas / India / 37 mins 1000 Days and a Dream / P. Baburaj & C. Saratchandran / India / 78 mins America, America / K.P. Sasi / India / 5 mins
Vande Mataram / Amudhan R.P. / India / 5 mins (Under Construction) Search for Freedom / Munizae Jahangir / Pakistan / 54 mins (Under Construction) Assimilation No, Integration Yes / Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy / Pakistan / 24 mins Autumn's Final Country / Sonia Jabbar / India / 45 mins (Under Construction) SEZ – A Prelude to Anarchy / Atul Pethe & NCAS / India / 35 mins Images You Didn't See / Anand Patwardhan / India / 4.30 mins We Are Not Your Monkeys / Anand Patwardhan / India / 5.00 mins
Day 3 - 9th May Lines of Mahatma / R.V. Ramani / India / 20 mins (Under Construction) Final Solution / Rakesh Sharma / India / 149 mins
Day 4 – 10th May Avenge But One of My Two Eyes / Avi Mograbi / Israel / 100 mins Brahma Vishnu Shiva / R V Ramani / India /19 min (Under Construction) The Great Indian School Show / Avinash Deshpande / India / 53min
Day 5 - 11th May Kitte Mil Ve Mahi / Ajay Bhardwaj / India / 72 mins Hope Dies Last In War / Supriyo Sen / India / 80 mins Naata / Anjali Monteiro and K. P. Jayashankar / India / 45 Mins
Day 6 – 12th May Fishers of Men / Ranjan Kamath, Padmavathi Rao / India / 117 min / 1997 (Under Construction) Karen Education Surviving / Scott O'
Brien, Saw Eh Do Wah / Burma, Thailand /29 min/2003 (Under Construction) The Mall on Top of my House / Aditi Chitre / India / Animation / 6 mins
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