The Hindu : Front Page : Governor for making Bangalore an international film festival centre

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 04, 2008
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Governor for making Bangalore an international film festival centre

Special Correspondent

‘The State Government will appeal to the Centre in this regard’

– Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

Traditional beginning: Governor Rameshwar Thakur and film director Adoor Gopalakrishnan inaugurating the ‘Bengalooru International Film Festival 2008’ at Chowdaiah Hall in Bangalore on Thursday.

BANGALORE: Governor Rameshwar Thakur has said that the State Government will urge the Centre to consider Bangalore as a major centre for holding international festivals on a permanent basis for promoting art cinema.

Mr. Thakur was speaking after inaugurating the weeklong second “Bengalooru International Film Festival (Biffes) being organised by Suchitra Cultural and Film Academy, in association with the State Government and the Kannada cinema industry here on Thursday.

Though Bangalore had earned fame in many fields, it was yet to make its mark as a major centre of film festivals and related activities. Film festivals with the magnitude of the one being held here would serve as a catalyst for facilitating the Directorate of Film Festivals to hold the festival in the city on a permanent basis with the efforts of all those concerned, he said. I.M. Vittalamurthy, Principal Secretary, Department Information, Tourism and Kannada and Culture, said the rich landscape and heritage sites of the State provided natural locales for cinema making. He urged filmmakers to showcase them and make the State a major cinema destination in the country.

He urged the Directorate of Film Festivals to recognise the State for its future festivals as it had infrastructure on par with other States.

Filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan said that the purpose of the film festival was to inspire and introduce the youth to art cinema culture and promote creativity. But watching films across the world and remaining complacent without contributing substantially for the cause of art cinema was a matter that called for introspection.

Tracing the reasons for the poor progress of parallel cinema in southern States, he said forces behind popular cinema – Kannada or Malayalam, or Tamil or Telugu – were not allowing art cinema to prosper. The commercial cinema had trained the audience to watch and appreciate only popular cinemas. Audience should understand the cultural importance of art cinema and respond to its cause. Organising any film festival without evoking concrete response from audience would be a waste, he said.

Filmmaker Girish Kasaravalli explained the objectives of Biffes. Chairman of the organising committee of the festival V.N. Subba Rao welcomed the gathering.

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