By Khadeeja Arif • Jul 9th, 2008 • Filed under: 10th Osian's Cinefan, Delhi, Festival Reports, Highlights, Interview, News, featured

Osian’s Cinefan festival of Asian and Arab cinema turns ten this year. The festival will be screening about 200 films from 40 countries. Khadeeja Arif spoke to Joint festival director, Latika Padgaonkar, about ten years long journey of the festival, its aims and aspiration, important additions to the festival over ten years and highlights of the latest edition.

Delhi audience has created a very warm atmosphere for Asian films: Latika

Khadeeja: Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival is turning ten this year. How has the journey been?

Latika: I would say it has been a very positive journey! When we started, Asian cinema has very little exposure. There were hardly any venues to showcase the Asian films. There were places like Indian Habitat Centre, India International Centre, and of course embassies were showing few films here and there. When the festival started, we had very little physical space too, to show the films. We had IHC and IIC, the halls very small and they could only accommodate limited number of people. And, also not many people knew about the festival, as they know now. But, gradually, we did make efforts to make the festival known, increased the numbers of venues. Apart from IIC and IHC, we got Siri Fort auditorium number 2 and later Alliance Françoise. As the festival started picking up, the audience of Delhi received the festival very well. Asian films and especially Arab films were spoken about with great enthusiasm. The audience of Delhi not only saw the films but also discussed them and created a very warm atmosphere for the reception of these films. In a way, I can say that we got the audience ready for Asian and Arab Cinema. So, all in all I can say that these ten years have been extremely positive.

You said that when you started, there was less publicity and less people knew about the festival! Has the awareness increased now?

Latika: When we started, we were just Cinefan and we were only showing films. Now we are Osian’s Cinefan Festival. When we merged with Osian, our horizon and the concept of the festival also changed. Now we are not only showing films, but there are discussions, art exhibitions, lectures, conversations, retrospectives, etc. So in ten years, not only the festival has grown big, but also it audience. Numbers have grown because the numbers of venues/ auditoriums have increased. Initially, we had one or two small auditoriums, now we have entire Siri Fort and also Alliance. Initially we used to send invitation to people, media houses and friends to come and see the films. Now the publicity has also increased. Media is there to highlight the festival.

In what way, the marriage of Osian and Cinefan has contributed to the festival?

Latika: Cinefan was just showing films. Cinefan was committed to encourage/criticize/appreciate and create a discourse on the Asian cinema. But, Osian brought various art/literature/ cinema under one umbrella and looked cinema as an interdisciplinary subject. In 2004, Cinefan merged with Osian’s and was renamed Osian’s Cinefan. Osian had the advantage of having huge archive of artifacts related to films and by holding exhibitions of related stuff to the films enlarged the philosophical framework and aesthetic of films that were showcased in the festival.

How has the response been to your efforts to combine art and films together?

Latika: your question about how did the audience receive the two together is perhaps the same question which we as organizers had also thought about very much. We had curated art exhibitions/ memorabilia, along with the screenings which were related to the films and which would have helped understanding films better. So whenever, these exhibitions took place at the venue of the screenings, the line between the two was not starkly different at all. They rather became extensions of each other. However, if an art exhibition is held at a separate venue then it has to stand on it own. And, we make sure that audience that has come to see the films go to these art galleries and see the exhibition. We would insist them to correlate a particular film with the exhibitions.

Day by day Osian’s Cinefan is expanding its horizon. This year you have one whole section dedicated to films which are based on novels!

Latika: As you must know Osian has got a new literary agency of its own which has recently started publishing book. The first book that was published by the agency was Saeed Mirza’s Ammi. So basically, the idea is to bring films which are based on novels and understand the relationship between the two: whether films are different than the novels; what kind of transformation does a book go through while being translated onto celluloid; whether book is better than the novel and vice a versa; or the book remains “the text” and rest is an improvisation, etc. We have invited writers like Kunal Basu, Chetan Bhagat Chitra Banerjee, Jaishree Misra who would be in conversation with filmmakers and scriptwriters about various aspects of cinematic translation of the novels.

What about Paul Sharder?

Latika: Paul Schrader’s visit to Delhi is going to delight the cinema lovers. Paul will be engaging with the audience in two sessions. One of the sessions that Paul Schrader would conduct is called ‘New Media and the future of the cinema’. In this session he will talk about history of cinema and here he would mainly talk about the fate of cinema in the age of new media and how new media has redefined cinema and its aesthetic. In another session, Paul Schrader would be sharing his experiences with screenplay writing.

Osian’s Cinefan has some great stuff to offer to its audience, but it’s only restricted to a certain “class” of audience. Nouvelle Tuli in one of the press conferences said that he wants to reach out to the masses! What do you have to say on that?

Latika: I don’t know what Nouvelle Tuli has in his mind when he says that he wants to reach out to the masses. It’s important to hold a festival like this. It’s unique in its own way. This is the first of its kind in the entire South Asia. I think it’s important to increase the number of audience as we move on. But, to my mind the task of reaching out to the so called masses can’t be achieved only through the festival. Festival happens once in a year. But, I see a great possibility of Osiannama doing this. Osianama will have discussions/ exhibitions/theatre performances round the year and when we have events throughout the year we can go to larger and hybrid audiences. But, yes, the festival is also doing its bit to reach out to as many people as it can. We have already had a pre festival in Mumbai and in future we will be taking some part of the festival to Kolkata and Bangalore as well.

Khadeeja: Thank you so much for the interview!

Latika: You’re welcome!!

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