FSA ’09 Jury Statement
September 20, 2009
Jury: Sadanand Menon (Chair), Lalsawmliani Tochhawng, Isa Daudpota
FSA ’09 has taken the Jury, as well the wonderful Kathmandu audience, on an amazing trip though South Asia these past few days. From Leh to Chittagong, from Afghan girls in headscarves kicking football to Maharashtrian girls in shorts boxing, from the unforgettable classical notes of M.D.Ramanathan to the inspiring celebration of Bob Dylan by Lou Majaw, from Kabir and Prahalad Tippanya to Kabir and the Indian Ocean, from transgender third sex communities in Tamil Nadu to uniformed enemies of love in Lucknow, from chroniclers of Dalit history like Bhagwandas the lone struggle of the tsunami-affected Mayomi in Sri Lanka to maintain her family’s dignity. We have seen children who grow up around the cremation sites at Varanasi or Pashupatinath. We have travelled to Kalimpong to look at the Gorkhaland agitation or to the border of Nepal and China to look at the disputed road coming up there. We have had over a dozen stories of the vexing immigrant and the refugee situation which continues to agitate citizens of South Asia and an equal number of strongly ‘political’ films looking at the manufacture of brutal communal violence in India (particularly in Gujarat) and violent anarchy on the streets of Pakistan. While two filmmakers in their incredible machines para-glided over the Himalayan range, we had an unlikely Superman who flew over Malegaon. We got familiar with a Nobel aspirant in a wheelchair, Dr.Dicksheet, and his truly superhuman surgeries and admired the dedication and social contribution of the mathematics genius Anand Kumar. We saw the ecological devastation awaiting Chilika Lake and the ruthless aggression of the work-in-progress in Delhi for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games.
The task for the present Jury, however, was cut out. We were clearly looking for ‘cinema’. We were looking for an acknowledgement to the fact that cinema is primarily a visual medium and wanted to celebrate the evolution and expression of this visual language. One must admit, regretfully, that the task was made easy by the fact that so many of our wonderful filmmakers rely a bit too much on an idea or on the text. The Jury felt like commenting that the quantity of short films being produced in this region is not equally matched by quality. Some truly exciting and original concepts were ruined through an attempt to say too much or simply being self-indulgent.
The Jury takes great pleasure in announcing its following choice:
Special Jury Mention Award
While several entries for this year’s festival could be commended separately in various departments like camera, editing, script or music, the Jury decided to make a Special Mention of the literally uplifting film Temples in the Clouds where Jim Mallinson and Chichoo Patuzzi para-glide over the Western Himalayas on both a spiritual as well as an aesthetic quest. The rank amateur filmmakers manage to communicate the excitement of the adventure with easy panache, even as they provide an incredible aerial view to the audience, something in the manner of Kalidasa’s ‘Meghdoot’ or the ‘Cloud Messenger’. Luckily, they do not let their droll playfulness get over the top.
Best Debut Film
This one was fairly easy. None of the other debutantes stood a chance before a pahalwan who wears his chaddi outside his pant. Of course we are referring to the tongue-in-cheek but seriously political film by Faiza Ahmed Khan, Supermen of Malegaon. Besides being a well finished product, its tone avoids the normal pitfalls of being patronizing or tendentious. Even more, it does not slip into kitsch. The filmmaker captures well the economic deprivation of Malegaon and its majority Muslim residents within which the story is located. The bunch of idealistic youngsters who decide to parasite on both Bollywood and Hollywood in order to bring some humour and fantasy in the lives of their own audiences is captured with a mature tenderness and empathy which makes this film outstanding.
Second Best Award
The Jury decided to split this award considering the number of films that might have been in contention. It shortlisted two films.
The Promised Land by Tanvir Mokammel is very well crafted and deftly captures the festering sore of ‘stateless citizens’ or ‘stranded citizens’ in so many regions of our extended sub-continent. It powerfully draws our attention to the issue of identities that have become a bane of post-colonial South Asia – the question ‘Who Am I’ becomes one of the trickiest questions of our times, as many segments of our population become playthings of current history. The film tells this story with grace.
The Salt Stories by Lalit Vachani performs, with consummate skill, the classic act of ‘documenting’ – the act of re-looking and re-living and re-connecting. Using the historic metaphor of Gandhiji’s ‘Salt March’ to Dandi, the filmmaker re-traces the path he walked on sixty years ago, evaluating the impact of Gandhi then and whatever trace and memory of it which still remains. The contrasts of the ‘then’ and the ‘now’ are subtly pointed out as the land of the apostle of non-violence has today become the site of some of the most brutal communal pogroms. Also, how the idea of ‘swadeshi’ or a self-sufficient economy has been over-ridden by the dream of a globalised economy which the present Chief Minister of the State, Narendra Modi peddles. In fact, the film belongs to the now distinguished line-up of anti-Modi documentaries that have accumulated since 2002.
Ram Bahadur Trophy for Best Film
At the end of viewing the package of 35 films in FSA ’09, the Jury was unanimous in its assessment that one of the shortest films eminently qualifies for the biggest award. We name Yasmine Kabir’s The Last Rites for the prestigious Ram Bahadur Trophy. This gem of a film fully satisfies the demands of what could be described as a ‘complete’ film. There is the superb tandem of camera and sound. It is sharply etched and tightly edited. It connects the ‘death rituals’ of ship-breaking with the struggles for life of a community of people. It treats its extended silence as its strength. In a happy way, it invoked for the Jury the memories of Robert Flaherty’s memorable documentary ‘The Man of Aran’ and, in that sense, connects the origins of the documentary genre with its contemporary practice. The film made us feel proud to be part of FSA ’09.
