Short Film News (SFN)- Bollywood appears to have descended on Delhi, as the 12th Osian’s Cinefan Festival for Asian and Arab Cinema approaches the half-way mark.
 
The day saw the presence of veteran director Shekhar Kapur, actor and filmmaker Sanjay Suri, director Kiran Rao, actor Prateik Babbar, actor and filmmaker Nandita Das. Both veteran filmmakers Shekhar Kapur and Sanjay Suri in separate interactions complained about the grading system of the Central Board of Film Certification.
 
Shekhar said many countries did not have any censorship and those that did had better and more rational regulations in place. Suri felt there is dire need for change in the grading system of films for certification as things like violence and even romance are being seen by children on television and other sources.
 
Shekhar said Indians should not be so crazy about the Oscars when Asia was vibrant enough to have its own Oscar-like awards, during an interaction with Osian’s Chairman Neville Tuli on “Indian Cinema, World Cinema film festivals and cinematic heritage”.
 
Director Kiran Rao in another interaction said she believed that the way characters are conceived provides motivation to a film, which did not necessarily have to depend on the plot. She said this was why her film ‘Dhobi Ghat’ had strong characters that took their own course in the movie rather then being dominated by the plot.
 
Actor Prateik Babbar said he had to work on his role as he had to learn the mannerisms and body language of a dhobi and also learn to speak fluent Hindi.
 
Later in the evening, renowned Iranian filmmaker Dariush Mehrjui in conversation with veteran critic Aruna Vasudev said it was a sad coincidence that most of his films had faced bans in his own country but won awards overseas. His film ‘The Orange Suit’ at the Festival is a satire on cleaning politics, through the idiom of the hero who takes upon himself the task of cleaning the environment.
Also the magic of animation was explored at the Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival in the presence of well known Estonian animator Priit Tender who is in Delhi to meet students and introduce them to a land where imagination can make anything possible- Animation according to Priit is a simple narrative that could be educative as well as entertaining.
 
Commenting on the Indian animation industry, Priit said that “It is still at a nascent stage and a lot of government impetus is needed to grow the industry here”. He pointed out that animation in Bollywood and Hollywood are made for earning money and it needs to generate revenue for the film makers, this does not allow the filmmakers the independence to experiment. Elaborating further on it he said, “This explains why animation industry the world over has not been popular as much as in Estonia”.
 
Priit though expressed lot of interest to tie up with Indian filmmakers. “I am looking forward to tie-up with Indian film makers and produce animation movies; it would be greatly exciting to explore characters that are different than the ones I dabble with in Estonia” he said.