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Question
Shyam Benegal Chairperson, Mumbai Academy of Moving images (MAMI)
On whether MAMI’s basic objective of bringing world cinema to cine buffs through an international film festival has been achieved
Would you call the Festival of Films a success?
It has been a relative success, I would say. The sponsorships and the funding for the festival came in at the last moment and we had same teething problems. Now, we know the shortcomings and we need to set up a secretariat which will work throughout the year. This team needs to be given the proper infrastructure to enable them to monitor contemporary world cinema and establish early contact with film-makers to get their films for the next festival.
But there were just three cinemas screening a limited number of films for the public. Don't you think you have failed in achieving the basic objective of bringing world cinema to the lay cinema lover?
I think we have achieved the objective. We did manage to organise screenings for those living in North Mumbai, unlike in 1997. And I am told that all the shows were full. So the response has been enthusiastic. In fact, we had to extend the festival by a day to accommodate some films.
Why does MAMI plan to build a corpus?
Like I said, a secretariat needs to be set up which will work round the clock. This festival has been made possible due to the untiring efforts of some committed film society activists like Sudhir N., Vinay Newalkar, Ashok Rane and several others.
Do you think that this year both mainstream and parallel cinema finally made it to a common platform?
Certainly. A number of mainstream producers and filmmakers were actively involved this year. Yash Chopra, Subhash Ghai, Yash Johar, Ramesh Sippy and many others participated. The filmstars did stay away though, but I am sure that they will participate when the festival comes into its own.
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