Goa will be listed among best film fest venues in the world

by RAMNATH RAIKAR
Posted on 2008-10-14
PANAJI - Expressing confidence that Goa will be listed among the best film festival venues around the globe in next couple of years, the celebrated film-maker, Shyam Benegal on Monday said that he, one of the half-dozen people from the film industry, who in the 1980s suggested the tiny state as a possible permanent venue for the International Film Festival of India, has now been proved right.
“Besides providing best of the world cinema and opportunities to strike deals as regards the film business at the IFFI, Goa can also be an excellent holiday destination for the festival delegates, who desire to relax a bit while attending the film festival,” he added.
Speaking to ‘The Navhind Times’, Benegal, who is presently in Goa, said that he has attended two of the four international film festivals held in Goa and is happy to observe that the IFFI was getting better with each passing year. “It is also a good sign that the infrastructural needs of the film festival are slowly being understood by the local population, because unless this happens, one is not likely to get a better film festival,” he added. Stating that things are appearing bright for the IFFI in Goa, with a separate secretariat established for the purpose and a new experienced person taking charge of the festival, Mr Benegal said, “I believe that Goa will prove to be the best permanent venue for IFFI.”
Director of films like ‘Ankur’, ‘Nishant’, ‘Junoon’, ‘Zubeida’, ‘Sardari Begum’ and ‘Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose - The Forgotten Hero’, Benegal, currently enjoying the success of his latest film - ‘Welcome to Sajjanpur’ said that the genre of the particular film is romantic comedy/ comic satire and the movie deals with various social topics like superstition, political skullduggery, caste oppression, low literacy level and state of the primary health centres, all readily available in any Indian village. “The film deals with these topics in a way the audience can assimilate them, and not reject what the film-maker wants to say,” he pointed out.
Benegal, who perhaps for the first time used a dream song sequence in his film - ‘Welcome to Sajjanpur’ - in all these years, said that it was the need of the film as the particular sequence demanded fantasy.
Having a word of praise for the writer of the film, Ashok Mishra, the noted film-maker, who earlier worked with seasoned writers ranging from Girish Karnad and Pt Satyadev Dubey to Shama Zaidi and Ismat Chugtai said that Ashok Mishra was also one of the 20 writers working with him for the mega tele-serial, ‘Bharat Ek Khoj’.
Acknowledging that today the technology in Indian films has not only improved but is at par with the technology available anywhere else in the world, Benegal said that though the workmanship in modern Indian films is excellent and the people well trained, we are less equal in terms of ideas generated. “Our ideas for films are not very good,” he noted.
Benegal also lamented that most of the Indian film-makers think about the entertainment aspect of their productions and presume that audiences are stupid. “They should re-orient this view and treat the audiences as sensible people, and only then the quality of our films will improve,” he stated.
Admitting that a lot more money is now available for making films as compared to the finances provided for films during 1960s and 1970s, Benegal said, “However, the funding for my films has been always hard to come because of the kind of subjects I handle and the financiers feeling that the element of risk is more in my films.” But, I feel that it is not so as more people watch my films and the productions never lose money, he stressed.
The well-known film-maker opined that the films are barometer of the society and reflect the prevailing trends. Benegal, who is all set to launch his new film based on a satirical subject, in January 2009, finally said that though he has grown old over the years, his social concern expressed through the films is same.