Khadeeja Arif takes a look at the Indian Competition section of 10th Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab cinema

Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab cinema will be celebrating it 10^th anniversary from 10^th July to 20^th July at the Siri fort and alliance Françoise auditoriums in New Delhi. The festival will showcase 200 films from Asian and Arab countries.

The 200 films also include 40 short films. This is for the first time that the festival would be treating its audience to short films. The films, as planned, will be shown in various different categories: competition, non competition categories, retrospectives, special mentions and so on. In short, the audience would see multilayered glimpses of life portrayed in Asian and Arab films. Out of 200 films only 48 films form Asian and Arab countries have been vying for awards in the competitive categories. The four competitive categories are: Asian and Arab Competition; Indian Competition; First Features and In-Tolerance.

The main competition category Asian and Arab Competition has 15 films. In this category there are films from Kazakhstan, Korea, Pakistan and Philippines, however, Indian films are conspicuous by their absence. Why? Osian’s director Nuvelle Tuli, thinks: “It’s a festival organized by India and in India. The idea is to accommodate as many Asian and Arab films in this category as possible and see some of the best films compete for the award for the best film and best director. For Indian films, we have a separate competition and let them compete among themselves’.”

Looking at the entries from seasoned and newcomer directors alike for the Indian competition section, it is evident that the jury will have a tough job ahead. The ten short listed films include: one by four time national award winner Girish Kasaravalli, in another film seasoned actor Mithun Chakraborty plays a Chhau (the masked dance form of east India) dancer, Manoj Bajpai and Rahul Bose share screen in a psychological thriller and a film based on renowned contemporary Hindi author Uday Prakash’’s novel.

Four time national award winner Kannada film director Girish Kasaravalli’s Gulabi Talkies has an interesting story to tell: Gulab, an expert midwife, leads a lonely life in an island inhabited by the fisher men. Her husband, Musa a small time fish selling agent has deserted her and living happily with his second wife Kunnipathu and their child Adda. To cope with the boring life she watches films filled with song and dance on a television gifted to her by a family whom she had once helped. Other women in the village gather at her house once the men leave for fishing. However, her happy and complacent world gets a shock because of a small incident and she finds herself alone in the village.

K.M. Madhusudhanan’s Bioscope is set in the 1920s when cinema entered the villages of Kerala, the protagonist Diwakaran’s new journey starts with his acquisition of a bioscope. Stunned by the early forms of cinema images his relationship with the bioscope turns into a story of inseparable friendship.
Maqbool Khan’s Kabootar is a story of four teenage boys hailing from a small town in Rajasthan called Dholpur. The boys become friends over time and there is nothing that these youngsters don’t do together - they hang out at the tea-stall at the chauraha (main crossing), play cricket, play pranks on each other and pull each other’s legs. There are times that they even get into serious fights with other rival groups - fights which may seem illogical to people like us but from their point of view - those were ‘real’ fights…completely logical and for them it was either do … or die ……. literally.

Remo D”Souza’s Lal Paharer Golpo (The Story of the red Hill) will see Mithun Chakravorthy in a new avatar. He plays a Chhau Dancer, Manohar from Bengal’s Purulia region. His art supersedes his love for a young girl, Maloti. When Manohar is away on a dance tour, Maloti is forced into marriage with Shib. She gives birth to Felai, a child who suffers from disability. Meanwhile, Manohar finds that Chhou is fast losing ground to the popular form called Jatra. The decline in his status and demand leads to depression and he takes to drinking. The disgruntled Shib tries to kill his handicapped son who is saved by Manohar. Manohar’s support helps Felai respond to Chhou rhythms. He overcomes his disability and together they restore the dance form in all its splendour.

Mazhar Kamran’s Mohandas is based on well known contemporary Hindi writer Uday Prakash’s novel of the same title. Oriental Coal Mines in Anuppur, Madhya Pradesh, is a strange place where Mohan Das applied for a job there and was selected. Then things started going seriously wrong. One day Meghna Sengupta, a correspondent working at a news channel in New Delhi, receives a videotape from remote Anuppur. On the tape there is a battered man claiming to be Mohan Das and alleging that someone else has stolen his identity. Intrigued by the strange tape, Meghna decides to investigate. What she unearths is a harrowing and surreal tale. And as it unravels, we see the tapestry of contemporary Indian society unfold with all its bizarre ills and contradictions. Mohandas is based on the eponymous novel by Uday Prakash.

Rajiv Virani’s The Whisperers will see Manoj Bajpai sharing screen with Rahul Bose. Touted to be a psychological thriller with an underworld don angle.

Anjan Das’s Swarger Neeche Manush (People under heaven) is a story of couple and the change that one night brings to their life. Here Rituparna Sengupta plays the wife.

Jaideep Varma’s witty Uproar takes a humors look at the loss of privacy in a city like Mumbai, while Gajendra Ahire’s Gulmohar takes on the perpetual struggle between art and livelihood. Prayas Gupta’s The prisoner takes an age old story from Rig Veda and gives it a contemporary touch.

(Festival will be inaugurated  formally on July 11, screenings began on July 10)

Download Screening Schedule: 10th Osian’s Cinefan, Delhi

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