India@75, Satyajit Ray Birth Centenary Celebrated at IFFI 2021
Manu Shrivastava | Panjim
In the ongoing celebrations of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, commemorating 75 years of India’s Independence, the 52nd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) hosted a few niche segments. For one, in a segment India@75, a string of 18 India-centric films, some from Bollywood, like Airlift, Kabuliwala, Shree 420 were screened to showcase India's rich and diverse cinematic heritage.
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| Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav theme resonated at IFFI 2021 |
Airlift, for one, showcased the spunk of a few Indians stuck in Kuwait during the Iraq invasion through "the eyes of Ranjit Katyal and a few other characters." Kabuliwala, a classic in its own right, is a story of an Afghan father away from his daughter, and finds shades of her in a child in India.
Also showcased was Shree 420 on Raj, played by Raj Kapoor, a village boy who travels to Mumbai and opts for the easy way of life and resorts to cheating to become rich but realises that he has paid a heavy price for his lifestyle and works to rectify his wrongs.
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| A still from Kabuliwala |
Filmmaker and member of the IFFI grand jury, Ketan Mehta quipped, “Cinema is now not only confined to big screens, it is now in the air we breathe and in everyone’s pockets, thanks to OTT platforms.”
Now, for the first time ever, 75 creative minds representing GenNext cinema attending the International Film Festival of India in Goa could avail opportunities to learn and interact with the best minds of the film industry.
This novel initiative under the aegis of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav is set to encourage and recognise young creative minds and budding talents in the country.
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| A still from Raj Kapoor's iconic film Shree 420 |
A Selection Jury had made a selection of 150 creative talents from out of the hundreds of entries and the Grand Jury selected the final 75 Creative Minds from these 150. The youngest candidate happens to be sixteen-year-old Aryan Khan from Bihar who has been chosen for his skills in Film Direction.
The list of 75 budding artists includes many who have been selected from various small towns and cities of India. Five young filmmakers are from the North Eastern States of Assam and Manipur and one from J&K.
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| The 75 Creative Minds of tomorrow felicitated at IFFI 2021 |
This time around, the festival has witnessed an exciting flurry of filmmakers, fresh and young, from across India. The faces of thrilled first-timers, following every word of a speech or masterclass to the 't' say it all. They are the future of Indian Cinema!
Ray lights up lives across the world
As India celebrates her 75th year of Independence that coincides with Satyajit Ray’s birth centenary year, it has been decided that IFFI’s Lifetime Achievement Award received by thespians will henceforth be called the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Cinema from this year.
At IFFI 2021, when Oscar-winning Hungarian filmmaker Istvan Szabo received the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award, he reminisced about the time he met with Satyajit Ray more than three decades ago in what was then Madras. “Ray invited me and my wife for dinner, which was excellent. We had a fantastic discussion on his films and filmmaking, our profession. It was a profound discussion that I will never forget.”
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| Hungarian filmmaker Istvan Szabo received the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award at IFFI 2021 |
“The radiant charismatic face of Ray and his spirit will be etched in my memory forever,” said Istvan Szabo, thanking IFFI for presenting the recognition in the name of his friend of yore.
Hollywood filmmaker Martin Scorsese, also conferred with the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award at the IFFI-52 Opening Ceremony, spoke at length, in a tribute and an acknowledgement of how Ray had influenced him. “I cannot tell you how proud I am to be receiving an award named after Satyajit Ray. Ray is one of my masters, he is one of the filmmakers whose work I have returned to over the years in my life. My love for his work began when I saw Pather Panchali, it was a revelatory experience for someone growing up in the West. This was opening a whole new world to me…I actually found a record of improvisations of Pather Panchali by Ravi Shankar and took it to my parents at home in New York. They were working class people who had never heard this kind of music before.”
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| Legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray |
Satyajit used his lens to “get into the psyche of a character…to make characters come alive on screen,” said Associate Professor of the Department of Film Editing, Film and Television Institute of India A. V. Narayanan while holding a Masterclass on ‘Directorial Practices of Satyajit Ray’, on 23 November 2021 during IFFI 2021.
“Understanding of lenses and magnification was crucial for him. As he did storyboarding from his first film, shot break-down and editing became quite easier after that,” said the professor.
FTII’s Associate Professor Ms Ganga Mukhi said, “Satyajit Ray believed that our cinema must have a language of its own…His films connect with everyone in spite of geographical and language barriers.”
As a tribute, IFFI 2021 will witness physical screenings of Satyajit Ray’s films throughout the festival. Also, Prime Video will be streaming Ray’s evergreen films between 20-28 November 2021.
