IFFI lacks in programming: Adoor

Panaji, Dec 2 (IANS) Veteran Malayalam filmmaker Adoor Gopalkrishnan, who praised the atmosphere at the 38th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) ending Monday, is however, not satisfied with selection of films and programming.

'In terms of film festival, it has an excellent ambience this year. Now it looks like the people in the campus are seriously interested in cinema. Projection is excellent in all the cinema halls. You cannot expect this quality of projection anywhere in the country. They are as good as anywhere in the Europe,' Adoor told IANS.

'I was travelling in Europe showing my film in places like Toronto, London and the quality of sound is as good as the international level. We have the right infrastructure, but we lack in the selection of films,' he added.

Two of his films were screened at the festival. His recently released 'Naalu Pennungal', a screen adaptation of famous Malayalam author Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai's short stories, was screened in the feature film section of Indian Panorama and 'The Dance Of The Enchantress' was shown in the non-feature film division.

Addor strongly feels that films shouldn't be randomly selected for the festival.

'Film loving people should select the films for the festival. It is not like somebody has sent you films and you are choosing from that. You have to go around seeing films and then decide which films should be shown.

'Whosoever is programming this festival should have seen all the films. They should be able to tell the audiences what films to be seen. For that you have to be knowledgeable you have to really love cinema and you will also have to share your knowledge with others,' he said.

There are many who agree with the director and say films like 'Full Circle' and 'The Eigth Day of the Week' were not worth screening in a festival of this stature.

'The collection of the film is not good this year. Last year they brought better films,' said a student of Film And Television Institute Of India, Pune.

Adoor feels that to match up with the other international festivals, their pattern of selecting films should be followed.

He said, 'Big festivals like Toronto have a selector for each region. Somebody is in charge of Asian cinema, other take cares of European, and so on. There are four or five selectors who are responsible for the film.'

'Before the screening they come and introduce the film to the audience. They talk about the director takes questions and answers from the audience. That's how you build a film culture. Somebody who takes all the trouble to come here to see the film shouldn't feel dejected,' he added.

Other problem he pointed out was the programming.

He said: 'The programming is not as good as the atmosphere. You can put more attention to programmes. Something like Master Class was badly placed. It was kept just after the screening - after watching two hours long movie who would like to sit in a class and discuss the film. Some people might be hungry and would like to eat. While I was taking the Master Class someone asked me to hold it for a while so that he can go and fetch something for himself to eat.'