A festival without the fizz?

THE 200 children turned up well on time, and waited for the VIPs to grace the occasion. It was quite a wait, a good one hour before the Minister of Tourism, Mr. N. Suresh Rajan strolled in. Well, at least he came, while Ms. Sai Paranjpye, chairperson of Children's Film Society of India called up to inform she was ill and hence, could not make it.

So a tourism Minister inaugurated the Children's Film Festival at the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce, on Monday. The only person who brought in relevance on the occasion was Director Mr. K. Hariharan, who requested the Minister to waive the minimum duration requisite of 3000 metres length (about 2 hours) for consideration of State awards, at least for Children's films as most of these films run only for about 90 minutes.

An extremely unfair criterion, for the internationally approved and accepted time duration for children's films is about 90 minutes. It is just not possible to keep children engrossed for a longer duration, experts say.

Santhosh Sivan's `Malli', that flags off the festival, is one of the victims of the criteria. The film has won 11 awards in all. Check this out: two National Awards (Best Child Artiste and Best Film on Environment), two Awards at the 11th International Children's Film Festival of India (Silver Elephant and Bronze Elephant for best Child Artiste), one at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival (2nd Prize) and four at the International Children's Film Festival in Poland (Best Director, Best Child Artiste, Best Music Director Aslam Mustafa, and a special mention).

After winning over juries at the national and international level, the film has been `rejected' at the State level! Ten-year- old baby Swetha, who plays the protagonist is not complaining at all. She believes she will win an Oscar some day. ``Playing Malli was easy,'' she says, after the screening.

While about 40 per cent of film viewers are children, films made for them every year constitute hardly a fraction. The Children's Film Society, India (CFSI) is fighting a very bleak battle, quite single-handedly. The job becomes all the more tougher for people down the CFSI ladder with Ms. Paranjpye not on the scene.

Big cinema houses and multi-theatre complexes have not featured the films and children's cinema is finding refuge in Ganapathyram (Adyar), Jayanthi (Thiruvanmiyur), Kamadenu (Mylapore), Balaji (Otteri), Natraj (Choolai), Krishnaveni (T.Nagar) and Maharani (Tondiarpet). The films lined up for a 9-30 a.m. screening at these theatres are `Halo', `Adisaya Coat', `Achhamillai', `Dubashi' and `Running Wild', at a concessional and uniform admission rate of Rs. 5 for a student.

Will children's cinema ever get a better deal?

By Sudhish Kamath

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