IDPA-Indian Documentary Producers Association

INDIAN DOCUMENTARY PRODUCERS’ ASSOCIATION
IDPA UPDATE Jan 16th 08

223, Famous Cine Building, 20 Dr. E. Moses Road, Mahalaxmi, Mumbai 400 001
Tel: 24920757, 2496 1020
e-mail : idpaindia@gmail.com
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IDPA UPDATE, the newsletter of the Indian Documentary Producers’ Association comes to you as an occasional publication. This is part of our effort to keep you updated about developments in the world of the short film. This issue gives the news about the awards at the 10th Mumbai International Film Festival or MIFF, something many of you would be keen to know about, especially as the mainstream media has ignored the event. Our warmest congratulations to our members Leena Manimekalai, Shyamal Karmakar, Anjali Monteiro and K P Jayasankar for winning distinctions in the competition.

To get the background, you can check www.miffindia.in and see the details of the entries in the competitive sections, Indian and International. At the site you can also see the programme of other films screened at MIFF, in various special packages. This time MIFF returned to the venue in the National Centre for the Performing Arts. They had many good films to see, thanks in large part to the suggestions from IDPA members on the organising committee. The festival was a special treat for film lovers.

IDPA’s presence at the festival was quite prominent, even if we say so ourselves. On 3rd February, just before the festival opened, we began with a small get together over tea and snacks at Tea Centre in Churchgate, thanks to Mr. Rathikant Basu of Broadcast Worldwide and Tara TV. The idea was that members coming in from out of town could meet the local IDPA people and we could plan to set up local units of IDPA and build unity among ourselves over the festival week. More on the discussion there in the next issue.

In the midst of all the formalities of the opening function on the evening of the 3rd, what everyone will remember is a gentle and humorous speech by IDPA President Jahnu Barua. It sharply made key points about the short film and documentary being ignored and the loser being Indian society, denied access to a significant body of work of film makers working outside the commercial stream. Information & Broadcasting Minister P R Das Munshi had to respond to it when he spoke later. What happens next is to be seen, but we also have to push harder from our side, to create new spaces for the wider community to have access to our work.

Right through the festival, Joshy Joseph of Films Division and Simantini Dhuru of IDPA coordinated the daily Open Forum sessions and the one-day Seminar. As the name suggests, these were forums for lively exchanges between delegates to the festival and the panelists. They became quite heated at times, despite the unusual chill in the air. A resolution asking for screening of award winning films on Doordarshan also came out of the Open Forum, it got over a hundred signatures and is going to the Minister.

The IDPA information counter at the festival, run by Pooja Takale, was one of the most frequently visited and crowded points at the MIFF. Many membership forms were picked up and we await these turning into actual registrations. On display and sale were DVDs of all sorts, including those from Magic Lantern's collection. Many film makers found this arrangement useful as they found it tough to peddle their own work. Gargi Sen, IDPA member from Delhi and Priyanka Mukherjee kept the place humming with background on the films on show, details about the makers, their other works and other queries from visitors.

On the night of February 8th we hosted one of the highlights of MIFF, the IDPA dinner for the delegates to the festival and other friends. This time we took a terrace in Nariman Point with a view of the sea, next to the NCPA. The atmosphere was electric, the arrangements made superbly by Lygia Mathews and George Thomas. It was the hit party of the festival, thanks in large measure to Diageo. Jagadish Banerjee and Aditya Seth had negotiated the sponsorships neatly and nothing ran out by way of food and drinks. Everyone was happy and people who had seen each other from a distance for the past few days finally got to speak. Our special thanks to Adlabs, whose generous support made this wonderful evening possible.

On the last day, February 9th, we again had a dialogue on how to get our films seen and decided to start an e-mail group on the subject. Those of you who wish to get into this conversation, and are able to offer venues with LCD projectors or even large monitors, please get in touch.

At the closing function we also gave the IDPA award for the best first film by an Indian film maker to Rahi Anil Barve for Manjah, an outstanding and mature work, though it is a first attempt. The recipient was chosen by the jury, not IDPA directly, but it is an honour from a body of fellow film makers and an encouragement to the talented young person.

More in the next issue. We hope you will find this issue useful. Please send us your suggestions and feedback and more observations of MIFF, perhaps things we need to take care of, for a better show the next time. Items for inclusion in future issues are most welcome. Please send them to idpaindia@gmail.com.

10th Mumbai International Film Festival
for Documentary, Short and Animation Films
held from 3rd to 9th February, 2008

International Awards

Award	Title	Duration in minutes	Country	Director	Producer	Citation
Best Documentary Film / Video (Upto 60 mins) Golden Conch + Rs. 2,50,000	GODDESSES	42	India	Leena Manimekalai	C. Jerrold	The young filmmaker, Leena Manimekalai, is faced with three old material goddesses who for different reasons find themselves naturally emancipated from Tamil tradition and orthodoxy. Leena creates for Goddesses a trusting filming arena that was never manipulative so that the three women opened up and revealed their total strength and power bordering on the archetype. They emerged free, master of the very tradition that had earlier kept them shackled.
Best Documentary Film / Video (Upto 60 mins.) Silver Conch + Rs. 1,00,000 Shared Between Two Directors ( i.e. Rs.50,000 each + Silver Conch )	ONE DAY IN PEOPLE’S POLAND	58	Poland	Maciej J. Drygas	Maciej J. Drygas	September 27, 1962 was an ordinary day in Poland except for its reconstruction by Maciej J Drygas in the film One Day in People's Poland. The archival images and sounds retrieved from several sources obviously do not synchronize to a singular reality. Without an effort to force a historical realism upon the material, the director keeps the two tracks independent, makes them move closer and further away from each other, creates an extraordinary document that is startling in its revelation of the nature of surveillance the state maintained in the sixties by keeping account of banal and inconsequential details in the daily life of its suspect citizens. The enormous task of editing the monumental archival material in the way it has been done is most commendable.
	BEYOND THE WALL	20	Poland	Vita Zelakeviciute	Maciej J. Drygas	Beyond the Wall uses short and pure images that elude description, often cannot be named. Through this poetic procedure the director directly enters into a hazy (often out of focus) universe of Russian soldiers sent to prison hospital to serve their sentence. The nondescript events such as the walks, the meals, the medicines, the crowding of the cell generate an unforgettable poem of silence and depth in confinement. Vita Zelakeviciute's narrative of broken spirits is a reflection on cold and heartless systems mankind is able to set in place in governance of countries.
Best Documentary Film / Video (Above 60 mins.) Golden Conch + Rs. 2,50,000	SALATA BALADI (HOUSE SALAD)	103	Egypt	Nadia Kamel	Sharry Lapp, Nadia Kamel, Elda Guidinetti, Richard Copans	Salate Baladi breaks down the classical cinema composition and makes a home movie deeply insightful of history. It makes geographical borders between countries appear unnatural, incapable of constricting families from their extensive affinities. The metaphor is no longer the family tree rooted in local soil – it is closer to a multiplicity in the manner the grass grows. Naida Kamel brings a new world family together.
Second Best Documentary Film / Video (Above 60 mins.) Silver Conch + Rs. 1,00,000	VIEW FROM A GRAIN OF SAND	82	USA	Meena Nanji	Meena Nanji, Amie Williams	Faced with an environment where women are oppressed to the extreme, Meena Nanji was able to make her characters in View from a Grain of Sand feel safe for them to re-evaluate their condition under the Taliban and post-Taliban periods in Afghanistan in front of the camera. Even as they put themselves to risk they are prepared to boldly share their knowledge and experience with the filmmaker - we sensed, for other women and children to understand and question.
Fiction Film / Video (Upto 75 mins.) Golden Conch + Rs. 2,50,000	KRAMASHA	22	India	Amit Dutta	Director, Film & Television Institute Of India , Pune	In the manner music keeps you quietly enthralled with a resonating sense of things without a need to necessarily reduce the experience to a verbalization of meanings, Kramasha offers a world of images and sounds that made us smell and touch the lush of nature amid a mysterious index of hallucinations. Like a dream that we may fail to understand but that reaches deep recesses of our unconscious and touches familiar chords, Amit Dutta's Kramasha weaves a powerful narrative that blends legends, myths and nostalgia into a film that allows us to recall our own early experiences.
Second Best Fiction Film / Video (Upto 75 mins.) Silver Conch + Rs. 1,00,000 Shared Between Two Director ( i.e. Rs.50,000 each + Silver Conch )	UNDERTAKERS	9	India	Emannuel Quindo Palo	Director, Film & Television Institute Of India , Pune	Emannuel Quindo Palo's Undertakers inverts certain empty conventions of acting to distance the viewer from the narrative and create a moving account of a Catholic coffin maker whose business is death but whose dead friends can claim free coffins. The absurd idiom of the film draws a humane picture of the struggles of an ordinary salesman who appears strangely caught between his survival and personal ethic.
	BARE HANDED	26	Belgium	Thierry Knauff	Thierry Knauff	Just the manner in which the dancer in Thierry Knauff's Bare Handed handles the newspaper, handles the noise of the newspaper, strangely reveals the violence a newspaper and therefore the world around us may carry. But it is the dancing woman whom a verbal world threatens to contain. In a series of deft choreographed movements and an equal graphic light the film makes the dancer dance her way through memories and desires until after a complete immersion in this world she loses herself in it.
Best Animation Film / Video Golden Conch + Rs. 2,50,000	The jury did not find a suitable film in this category
Second Best Animation Film / Video Silver Conch + Rs. 1,00,000	The jury did not find a suitable film in this category
International Jury Award Rs. 1,00,000	FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER	94	USA	Irena Salina	Steven Starr	The Jury decided to characterize the Award as a recognition of films that bring unknown shocking revelations that threaten ecological and even existential balance of the planet we inhabit. The depiction of a global crisis caused by privatization of natural resource such as water in the film Flow: Love of Water attempts to educate the audience of atrocities major corporations commit against individuals, families and communities in the name of water and for the sake of plain old profit. The message of the film is clear: make water free, clean and available to the citizens of the world. The Jury commends the revealing research Irena Salina brought to bear on the film and unlike our condition for awards at this edition of MIFF, the Jury exempts this film from the obligation of discovering a parallel cinematic form to its content.
Best First Film / Video of a Director instituted by Govt. of Maharashtra Trophy + Rs. 1,00,000	INK (SIRA)	28	India	Bharani Tanikella	Sreenivas Tanikella	Through surreal imagery, Bharani Thanikela, Ink, is able to employ a violent visual idiom for existential struggle of the poet, for the fight the poet wages against violence of terrorism. His wife deeply worried about their lives, takes on the mantle of fight against terrorism after the poet's death. Film full of resilience.
International Critics Award Certificate of Merit	SALATA BALADI (HOUSE SALAD)	103	Egypt	Nadia Kamel	Sharry Lapp, Nadia Kamel, Elda Guidinetti, Richard Copans	Citation above
Best Film / Video of the Festival Award (for Producer only) Rs. 1,00,000	KRAMASHA	22	India	Amit Dutta	Director, Film & Television Institute Of India , Pune	Citation above

Indian Awards

Award	Title	Duration in minutes	Country	Director	Producer	Citation
Best DOCUMENTARY Film / Video Golden Conch + Rs. 1,50,000	INDIA UNTOUCHED STORIES OF A PEOPLE APART	108	India	Stalin K.	Drishti – Media, Arts & Human Rights	India Untouched-Stories of a People Apart for achieving the ideals of socially and politically committed documentary film making. The film unflinchingly uncovers the all pervasive, deeply rooted and still existing caste system in twenty first century India, with chilling evidence that it shows no sign of abating in generations to come. The Jury recommends it as essential viewing for all audiences worldwide.
Second Best DOCUMENTARY Film / Video Silver Conch + Rs. 75,000	MAHUA MEMOIRS	82	India	Vinod Raja	Ashok Maridas	Mahua Memoirs for compassionately exposing the ruthless underside of corporate globalization through the ongoing decimation of Adivasi lands, people and their cultures throughout India. Beautifully crafted with outstanding visuals and haunting music, it is an urgent call to re-examine the policies of the day.
Best FICTION Film / Video (Upto 75 Mins) Golden Conch + Rs. 1,50,000	MANJAH	40	India	Rahi Anil Barve	Animaa Films	Manjah for the first-time director’s fictional expression of child sexual abuse and survival, portrayed in a highly individualistic, graphic and cinematic style. The filmmaker manages to extract outstanding performances from the actors within a stark, industrial urban landscape.
Second Best FICTION Film / Video (Upto 75 Mins) Silver Conch + Rs. 75,000	THE LOST RAINBOW	22	India	Dhiraj Meshram	Director, Film & Television Institute of India, Pune	The Lost Rainbow for presenting a series of nostalgic, touching moments in an evocative and playful manner, enhanced by the realistic performances of the child actors. The film details how the results of mischievous sibling rivalry can haunt the protagonists for the remainder of their lives.
Best ANIMATION Film / Video Golden Conch + Rs. 1,50,000	MYTHS ABOUT YOU	9	India	Nandita Jain	Periyar Tiger Reserve, Kerala	Myths About You for a clever and imaginative representation of the history of the Universe, both in terms of Hindu mythology and scientific research, in an original graphic style, all within a short span of 9 minutes.
Second Best ANIMATION Film / Video Silver Conch + Rs. 75,000	THREE LITTLE PIGS	6	India	Bhavana Vyas & Akanito Assumi	National Institute of Design	Three Little Pigs for presenting a well-known childhood story through wire frame animation techniques in a deceptively simple style. The film has background voice-overs in the form of a conversation recalling the story, which is both engaging and amusing while bridging the documentary form with animation.
Indian JURY Award Rs.1,00,000 Shared Between Two Directors ( i.e. Rs.50,000 each)	I’M THE VERY BEAUTIFUL	65	India	Shyamal Kumar Karmakar	Sanghamitra Karmakar	I’m the Very Beautiful for a personal, complex and often contradictory portrait of an indomitable woman and her continuous struggle in her pursuit of a life of freedom and dignity despite her social stigma in a patriarchal and chauvinistic society. In its style and treatment, the film mirrors the free spirit of the protagonist with abandon and candour.
	THOUSAND DAYS AND A DREAM	60	India	P. Baburaj & C. Saratchandran	Third Eye Communications & Vikas Abhyayan Kendra	Thousand Days And A Dream for its poignant and dramatic account of the peaceful struggle of common people against a gigantic multinational company supported by the policies of the state in which the people have been deprived of their vital, basic natural resources and livelihood.
Best First Film / Video of a Director Instituted by Indian Documentary Producers’ Association. (IDPA) Trophy + Rs. 25,000	MANJAH	40	India	Rahi Anil Barve	Animaa Films	For the understanding of cinematic form and idiom and having the courage to push the form and tell a difficult story.
Indian CRITICS Award	MAHUA MEMOIRS	82	India	Vinod Raja	Ashok Maridas	Citation above
Best Film / Video of the Festival Award ( for Producer only ) Rs.1,00,000	INDIA UNTOUCHED STORIES OF A PEOPLE APART	108	India	Stalin K.	Drishti – Media, Arts & Human Rights	Drishti – Media Arts & Human Rights for taking the initiative and having the courage to investigate the issue of untouchability and its ramifications in all corners of Indian society. The Jury strongly feels that this film is in the best tradition of documentary film making and is an inspiration to all filmmakers for independent, thought-provoking, free-spirited use of the medium for social change.
Special Mention & Certificate of Merit Shared Between two films	OUR FAMILY	56	India	Dr. K.P. Jayasankar & Dr. Anjali Monteiro	Dr. K.P. Jayasankar & Dr. Anjali Monteiro	Our Family for its compassionate and sensitive portrayal of the third sex – their bonding and their aspirations. The film traces their roots sourced from mythology combined with a mesmerizing one-person performance of the traumas and stigma experienced by their community.
	RAGA OF RIVER NARMADA	12	India	Rajendra Janglay	Madhya Pradesh Madhyam	Raga of River Narmada for its fascinating flowing visuals highlighting the river in its many vibrant moods through its journey complemented by an exceptional use of the Dhrupad.