FEATURE

The lights went off in the awaiting theatre room. The seat number on the ticket didn’t matter as people sat wherever they liked. To my left was a male couple, holding hands and waiting for the movie to start. To my right was a female couple also holding hands and waiting anxiously for the movie to begin. The row in front of me had a big bunch of guys not really bothered about the movie but who were, none the less, happy to be together.

Vikramaditya Motwane’s “Udaan”, the film that made it to Un Certain Regard at Cannes International Film festival after seven years has been the talk of the town lately. With Udaan, Indian cinema’s seven year long jinxed relationship with the premier film festival has come to an end. Murali Nair’s Arimpara was the last film to have made it to Un Certain Regard, the section that carries the second most prestigious award, in the year 2003. Prior to that, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas was presented as a special screening out of competition at the festival in 2002.

After attempts to bulldoze its agenda of commercialization and to tamper with reservation, the JNU administration is now going all out to muzzle freedom of expression and speech with a series of draconian measures. In a meeting of the Provosts held on 26th March, the Dean of Students has come up with a Proforma for all hostels regarding organizing Public Meetings and Film Screenings.

Rumours are circulating in Paris two weeks ahead of the press conference at which the official selection for the 63rd Cannes Film Festival (May 12-23, 2010) will be unveiled. And uncertainty will reign until April 15 for this year many films are apparently caught up in a race against time to be ready for Cannes.

After producing exceptional masterpieces like Good Will Hunting, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill 1 & 2, The Inglorious Basterds and An Inconvenient Truth, Lawrence Bender has arrived once more to bring another quality piece or work with his latest documentary ‘Countdown to Zero.’ The 90 minute long documentary is one which deals with the maddening rise of nuclear armaments. If the camera tells a story, then there is nothing more revealing than the subject handled here.

As FICCI Frames 2010 drew to a close today, two issues remained predominant over the three days of the Global Conference on the Business of Entertainment. Looking at both of them, the conference can be said to be skewed in favour of cinema sidelining its other siblings like television in the arena of entertainment. All the same, two really important issues concerning India cinema by and large i.e piracy and the state of script writers in India were addressed in reasonable depth.