May 10 to 13, 2007

A Report

The ViBGYOR 2007 film festival was held in Thrissur, Kerela. The festival focussed on Earth, while carrying forward the central theme of Celebrating identities and diversity.

The main festival was held in the town of Thrissur at the Regional Theatre, Natyagruham, Chetana Hall. This huge auditorium had nearly sitting space of 700. Outside the auditorium, in the same compound, there was a sculpture in progress, the artist would add different aspects to his art everyday, and everyone looked forward to see if their imagination and the artists’ had a convergence. The road on which this sculpture was in progress, on the side of Regional Theatre, led to the back of the theatre where the open screenings were set up. At the back of this theatre was painted a beautiful mural of the earth and tree branching out towards its visitors, through its vivid colours. Most of the evening screenings were held in the open space at the back of the theatre, under twinkling lights, with the colours of the mural playing hide and seek behind the screen. On some of the days the screenings were either started with or followed by exhilarating dance and music by local groups.

The main festival venue saw an open forum for discussions and releases. Running parallel to the film festival was a special animation film workshop, within the festival premises, which was much appreciated and enthusiastically attended by many students from the town. The festival also saw some regulars and new faces everyday.

Running parallel to the main festival was also the Village Festival, which took some of the films to a new village everyday. This was organised in the nearby Panachery Panchayat, one of the largest in Kerela. The Stree Jagruta Samiti took a lead in organizing these screenings in the villages. It was in a similar village in Pattikad, where Vibgyor had its closing ceremony. The event had considerable local attendance.

The ViBGYOR package consisted of many films categorised under the primary themes of Indigenous people, Dalit reality, Gender & Sexuality, Fundamentalism v/s Diversity, Nation State (war & conflict), Globalisation and Region Focus (South Asia). These were interspersed with focus of the year 2007 - Earth package, Global Concerns package, Kerela Spectrum, Experimental section and Retrospectives.

Under Construction contributed with 13 films from its list to the festival, most of which were screened in the parallel village screenings and some of them were screened also at the main venue. Under Construction had also set up another of its space of display for all its films at the main festival venue. This was a first time for UC in Thrissur.

A report by Priyanka Mukherjee

List of films from Under Construction screened at the festival

1. A Certain Liberation (Yasmine Kabir, Bangladesh)

2. Breathing without Air (Kapilas Bhuyan, India)

3. Calcutta Pride March - 2004 (Tejal Shah, India)

4. Cease! Fire! (Scott O’ Brien and Saw Eh Do Wah, Thailand/ Burma)

5. From Dust (Dhruv Dhawan, Sri Lanka/ UAE)

6. In whose interest? (David Kaplowitz, UK)

7. Little Republics (Gautam Sonti, India)

8. Passengers (Nooh Nizami and Akanksha Joshi, India)

9. Potrait of Sakhi (Karenza Bowen, Australia)

10. Search for Freedom (Munizae Jahangir, Pakistan)

11. The Die is Caste (Ranjan Kamath, India)

12. The (T)Error of POTA (Gargi Sen, Ranjan De, Neha Mittal, India)

13. Voces Argentinas (Zoe Young and Dylan Howitt, UK)

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