Having read so many blogs about cine-lovers visiting film festivals & writing about some really great movies, great hospitality, representation of various countries, interaction with cast & crew, in summary a true celebration of cinema, I was looking forward to the 18th edition of KFF (Kolkata international film festival). I wanted to enjoy the experience, meet some like minded cinema lovers, watch some great movies (known & unknown) from across the globe & celebrate cinema.
Day 1, we reached the venue about an hour before the movie we came to watch starts in order to figure out the process for watching movies, whether tickets are to be bought or passes have to be made. As soon as we reached we saw people just entering the hall, and without thinking we followed suit. Nandan has three screens & we decided to grace Hall 1 which was playing "Memories of the melancholy whores", since we entered only for last 30-40 minutes we could not relate to anything that was shown. Also I didn't like the fact that people were taking calls, talking amongst each other, etc, I always hate such stuff when I am watching a movie. But at the end everyone clapped & the movie got a standing ovation. Though I didn't share the sentiment, as I couldn't see the whole movie, I like the appreciative bit about the audience. Everyone was made to leave post that & asked to re-enter in case they wanted to watch the next movie, which is supposedly the biggest draw in Indian movies. Movie was Ashim Ahluwalia's "Miss Lovely", which has been making right noises across film festivals. As expected there were quite a few people trying to get in, we stood in the queue but realized everyone had a pass except us. And in Nandan you cannot enter using contributory passes, hence the only way we could enter was to get passes from someone else or somehow convince the guys manning the entrance & checking tickets. Of course we could have waited and entered half way into the movie just like the previous one, but I wanted to watch the movie from the beginning. So convincing didn't work as gate pass was asked for vehemently and sentiments of a cinema lover didn't count for anything. We started asking strangers for pass, as expected it didn't happen soon. After a few really bad & a few funny reaction we found a group of guys carrying camera & looking disappointed, we found out that they were denied the permission to enter as they had a camera. One of them was a director of a short movie, which was shown earlier in the day. They were kind enough to give us their passes. We entered 15 minutes late, using a pass which had a different picture & a different name. Cast was interesting, so was the plot. It was less of a movie, which is more of a documentary, about the B-grade sex-horror movies which were being made post 1980s. Niharika singh did a nice job, so did Nawaz & all the other actors. Now for me it was not a great movie, but the setting, performances, manner in which the industry was shown, made it an enjoyable experience. And this time when they all clapped, I joined.
Day 3, Next on the agenda was "Calm at Sea",a french movie giving an account of initiation of resistance in Nazi occupied France, during World War II. Now out of all movies about WW II my pick would be "The boy in the striped pajamas", the reason for that would be it communicates with viewers in a subtle manner. Simple plot with a story line, which although strong does affect & capture imagination of audience by the end of the movie. Something similar was the treatment of "Calm at Sea", very matter-of-fact-ish representation of an actual historic event, it wasn't dramatic or over-the-top. Performances were good & overall it was a good experience. I had gone in with zero expectations with the movie but came out more than satisfied.The movie was about how Nazis decided to kill 150 hostages, when one officer was shot by french revolutionists & that becomes the turning point in otherwise almost non-existent resistance in France. Out of those 150, there are quite a few young, non-political, harmless hostages but since the numbers had to be completed they are all ordered to be killed. The movie, sort of pays homage to all those unsung heroes who died for no fault of theirs.
Day 4, Next I wanted to watch 'Hemel', I had to run from my office to the theatre in order to be on time. My friends were there with the tickets, I just had to reach on time. After standing in queue for a decent time when we were just about to enter the hall, I was asked to put my laptop away. Now camera not being allowed inside the screening area is understandable, but people having issues with laptop was beyond me. Also they had no arrangement to keep laptop & they were rude. I wanted to watch the movie & the only solution they could offer was to meet with the CEO of KFF & ask him to help us. So we went to the CEO's office which was about 200-300 mts away. And again our experience here was sad, no one had a solution. After I blasted one of the guys there, I was told that I can keep my laptop at the locker at Nandan, but it was already 30 mins into the movie & I was not in a mood to appreciate anything good by then. On our way out we saw the CEO, who was acting busy inside his office, standing down waiting for someone or something. I went up to him to give feedback regarding behavior of his staff & random rules (which was not even communicated at ticket counter or printed on tickets) but I realized he wasn't keen on hearing. It was a bad experience, even worse than watching 20% of "Maan gaye mughal-e-azam" a benchmark which hasn't been improved for a long-long time. With new benchmarks, we went for dinner, cursing the CEO & his team. No one was even trying to help people, as we weren't the only ones & everyone left with a bad taste.
Even though I had decided not to participate any more, on last day I felt like I should have a decent last memory of my first film festival. And there was a movie I wanted to watch which had a show at a different theatre, EZCC at salt lake. The movie was "A Separation" by Asghar Farhadi, the movie had won plenty of awards including Best Foreign Language Film at Academy. So with a decent level of expectation we went for the movie & the movie delivered big time on our expectation. A story playing on human emotions, relationships, right & wrong, ethics, ego, and so many other subtle layers. Amazing story telling by Irani director, and all the actors gave top notch performances. Movie was about a couple on the verge of getting a divorce, were wife wants to travel away from Iran for a better future of their daughter & husband wants to stay back in Iran to look after his father who has Alzheimer's. They do not communicate properly between each other & daughter is suffering because of this. Their are plenty of characters which ensures the movie moves forward & get on track to an end which is almost like the best thing possible for the movie. Backdrop of Iran & divide that exist between classes was shown nicely in the movie. It is one of those movies which has characters with different shades of grey, there is no right or wrong here. Viewers would be able to sympathize with every character & it's the mastery of director that even after plenty of significant events & blame game's no one would be able to judge any of the characters.Recommended for one and all, it is one of those movies which should appeal to everyone.
If I have to summarize my experience with the Film festival, I strongly feel that it should be conducted in a more viewer-friendly manner, which was missing big time in case of KFF. But one positive was that the selection of movies was pretty good, I could have seen many more, but the incident with 'CEO & his team' prevented that from happening. Unless a film festival is conducted as a celebration of cinema & has elements of festivities, it should not be considered successful. But because of the movies I saw, I would never miss an opportunity to attend any film festival in future, though this time I would be careful about what I carry because for all I know the CEO of Kolkata FF would still be there years from now :)
Day 1, we reached the venue about an hour before the movie we came to watch starts in order to figure out the process for watching movies, whether tickets are to be bought or passes have to be made. As soon as we reached we saw people just entering the hall, and without thinking we followed suit. Nandan has three screens & we decided to grace Hall 1 which was playing "Memories of the melancholy whores", since we entered only for last 30-40 minutes we could not relate to anything that was shown. Also I didn't like the fact that people were taking calls, talking amongst each other, etc, I always hate such stuff when I am watching a movie. But at the end everyone clapped & the movie got a standing ovation. Though I didn't share the sentiment, as I couldn't see the whole movie, I like the appreciative bit about the audience. Everyone was made to leave post that & asked to re-enter in case they wanted to watch the next movie, which is supposedly the biggest draw in Indian movies. Movie was Ashim Ahluwalia's "Miss Lovely", which has been making right noises across film festivals. As expected there were quite a few people trying to get in, we stood in the queue but realized everyone had a pass except us. And in Nandan you cannot enter using contributory passes, hence the only way we could enter was to get passes from someone else or somehow convince the guys manning the entrance & checking tickets. Of course we could have waited and entered half way into the movie just like the previous one, but I wanted to watch the movie from the beginning. So convincing didn't work as gate pass was asked for vehemently and sentiments of a cinema lover didn't count for anything. We started asking strangers for pass, as expected it didn't happen soon. After a few really bad & a few funny reaction we found a group of guys carrying camera & looking disappointed, we found out that they were denied the permission to enter as they had a camera. One of them was a director of a short movie, which was shown earlier in the day. They were kind enough to give us their passes. We entered 15 minutes late, using a pass which had a different picture & a different name. Cast was interesting, so was the plot. It was less of a movie, which is more of a documentary, about the B-grade sex-horror movies which were being made post 1980s. Niharika singh did a nice job, so did Nawaz & all the other actors. Now for me it was not a great movie, but the setting, performances, manner in which the industry was shown, made it an enjoyable experience. And this time when they all clapped, I joined.
Day 3, Next on the agenda was "Calm at Sea",a french movie giving an account of initiation of resistance in Nazi occupied France, during World War II. Now out of all movies about WW II my pick would be "The boy in the striped pajamas", the reason for that would be it communicates with viewers in a subtle manner. Simple plot with a story line, which although strong does affect & capture imagination of audience by the end of the movie. Something similar was the treatment of "Calm at Sea", very matter-of-fact-ish representation of an actual historic event, it wasn't dramatic or over-the-top. Performances were good & overall it was a good experience. I had gone in with zero expectations with the movie but came out more than satisfied.The movie was about how Nazis decided to kill 150 hostages, when one officer was shot by french revolutionists & that becomes the turning point in otherwise almost non-existent resistance in France. Out of those 150, there are quite a few young, non-political, harmless hostages but since the numbers had to be completed they are all ordered to be killed. The movie, sort of pays homage to all those unsung heroes who died for no fault of theirs.
Day 4, Next I wanted to watch 'Hemel', I had to run from my office to the theatre in order to be on time. My friends were there with the tickets, I just had to reach on time. After standing in queue for a decent time when we were just about to enter the hall, I was asked to put my laptop away. Now camera not being allowed inside the screening area is understandable, but people having issues with laptop was beyond me. Also they had no arrangement to keep laptop & they were rude. I wanted to watch the movie & the only solution they could offer was to meet with the CEO of KFF & ask him to help us. So we went to the CEO's office which was about 200-300 mts away. And again our experience here was sad, no one had a solution. After I blasted one of the guys there, I was told that I can keep my laptop at the locker at Nandan, but it was already 30 mins into the movie & I was not in a mood to appreciate anything good by then. On our way out we saw the CEO, who was acting busy inside his office, standing down waiting for someone or something. I went up to him to give feedback regarding behavior of his staff & random rules (which was not even communicated at ticket counter or printed on tickets) but I realized he wasn't keen on hearing. It was a bad experience, even worse than watching 20% of "Maan gaye mughal-e-azam" a benchmark which hasn't been improved for a long-long time. With new benchmarks, we went for dinner, cursing the CEO & his team. No one was even trying to help people, as we weren't the only ones & everyone left with a bad taste.
Even though I had decided not to participate any more, on last day I felt like I should have a decent last memory of my first film festival. And there was a movie I wanted to watch which had a show at a different theatre, EZCC at salt lake. The movie was "A Separation" by Asghar Farhadi, the movie had won plenty of awards including Best Foreign Language Film at Academy. So with a decent level of expectation we went for the movie & the movie delivered big time on our expectation. A story playing on human emotions, relationships, right & wrong, ethics, ego, and so many other subtle layers. Amazing story telling by Irani director, and all the actors gave top notch performances. Movie was about a couple on the verge of getting a divorce, were wife wants to travel away from Iran for a better future of their daughter & husband wants to stay back in Iran to look after his father who has Alzheimer's. They do not communicate properly between each other & daughter is suffering because of this. Their are plenty of characters which ensures the movie moves forward & get on track to an end which is almost like the best thing possible for the movie. Backdrop of Iran & divide that exist between classes was shown nicely in the movie. It is one of those movies which has characters with different shades of grey, there is no right or wrong here. Viewers would be able to sympathize with every character & it's the mastery of director that even after plenty of significant events & blame game's no one would be able to judge any of the characters.Recommended for one and all, it is one of those movies which should appeal to everyone.
If I have to summarize my experience with the Film festival, I strongly feel that it should be conducted in a more viewer-friendly manner, which was missing big time in case of KFF. But one positive was that the selection of movies was pretty good, I could have seen many more, but the incident with 'CEO & his team' prevented that from happening. Unless a film festival is conducted as a celebration of cinema & has elements of festivities, it should not be considered successful. But because of the movies I saw, I would never miss an opportunity to attend any film festival in future, though this time I would be careful about what I carry because for all I know the CEO of Kolkata FF would still be there years from now :)
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