Aruna Vasudev Bids adieu, Mirnal Sen honoured with Lifetime achievement award

Tenth Osian’s Cinefan festival of Asian and Arab cinema, was inaugurated on July 11 with Honk Kong filmmaker Johny To’s Sparrow. In an opening ceremony marked with nostalgia and “visionary” speeches by the organizer, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit lit the lamp and formally announced the festival’s tenth edition.

Renowned filmmaker, one of the pioneers of the Indian new wave, Mrinal Sen was conferred festival’s newly instituted lifetime achievement award while Pilipino critic and screenwriter Pete Labaca was felicitated with Aruna Vasudev Life time achievement award for writing on cinema.

In the opening ceremony , the founder of Cinefan festival Arun Vasudev formally passed on the baton to the new organizer Osian’s director Nuvelle Tuli. Tuli in his speech shared his vision of creating a platform for engagement between various art forms and their lovers.

Mani Kaul, pioneer filmmaker of Indian new wave, read out the felicitation note to Mirnal Sen. Recipient of various national and international awards including Dada Saheb Phalke award and French Commander of the Order, Mrinal Sen was overwhelmed with passion for the medium. “I am happy to receive the award. But, I have mixed feelings at the moment. I am happy but at the time sad. I am happy to receive this award from very dear Osian’s Cinefan, but I am sad because I just wish I could have done more of what I do. I always tell myself that I am one year younger than my next birthday so I should more. Ideas keep popping in my head’, said the filmmaker after accepting the award amidst standing ovation.

The Aruna Vasudev Life time Achievement Award for writing in Cinema is bestowed to Jose ‘Pete’ F Lacaba for his distinguished contribution to Cinema.

Jose F Lacaba, (also known as Pete Labaca) poet, journalist, editor, translator and screen writer is a leading personality of Philippines and one of the ‘finest representatives of its arts and literature’. Lacaba has six anthologies of poems to his credit. Apart from writing poetry, books, he has also written the screenplays of award wining films like Jaguar, Bayan Ko: Kapit Sa Patalim. Sister Stella L etc.

Pete called for attention to the fact that writers never receive the credit due to them because critics think film is a director’s medium, while audience think cinema belongs to stars.

The festival opened with a Hong Kong film ‘Sparrow’. The film is directed by Jhonny To. Sparrow is slang in local Hong Kong Street language for pickpocket. The film is about four brother and one woman, all professional pickpockets. Their profession, somehow, brings them together. They come together more by accident than design; they don’t have much to do with each other in terms sharing professional secrets or but somehow their lives becomes intrinsically dependent on each other, as they each gets emotionally dependent on each other, without explicitly declaring it ever.

In the past two days the festival has showcased more than 33 films from all across Asian and Arab countries and in the coming days, it has scheduled to show more than 170 feature films, which includes short films as well.

Screening of short films will begin on July 14 and will continue till July 18. The festival has opened with a vigor that’s unmatched and unseen and the film lovers have more than enough to satisfy their hunger for films, but the director of the Festival Nuvelle Tuli says ‘ it needs to grow bigger and bigger’.

The festival also paid tribute to one of the most popular Bollywood actor of yesteryears Shammi Kapoor. He was felicitated earlier in a ceremony in Mumbai.

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