Docu diet unlimited

GUNS BOOM, swords rise. And blood flows as streets become killing fields. It's the same old story of communalism. Two old men - one a Hindu and the other a Muslim - worn out after a futile night long search for their sons lost in the riot-torn city, come across a pool of blood on a bridge. They sit down beside it silently.

Barkha is a middle class girl. Shiv, a Sri Lankan, is a paying guest with her family. Love blooms. Barkha is pregnant and they decide to get married. Shiv wants her to meet his parents and she sets off with loads of gifts for them. At the airport, he hands her one more packet. She boards the flight and the plane explodes minutes after take-off.

These are two telling tales - `Yeh woh shahar to nahin' and `Barkha' - captured on celluloid by students of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, that will be screened in Hyderabad in the festival of documentaries and short fiction films being organised by the Hyderabad Film Society from January 25 to 31.

The 18-minute long `Yeh woh shahar to nahin'made by Vajjha Sudhakara Rao won the national award for the best first film of a director in the non-feature film category at the 44th national film festival, 1997. The shocking `Barkha' , capturing the unrest and violence lashed isles of Lanka, was made by Anindita Sarbadhicari.

The festival brings to the Hyderabadis films from the stable of the Films Division, Mumbai, and the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Notable among the documentaries are Gulzar's biographical film on Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Shaji N. Karun's tribute to the Malayalam filmmaker, G. Aravindan, and Aravindan's biographical on radical thinker Jiddu Krishnamurti, `The seer who walks alone', Mani Kaul probing the genesis of `Dhrupad' and many more.

From documentaries and short films made by maestros like Satyajit Ray, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aravindan, Mani Kaul, Buddadeb Dasgupta to those made by young and budding filmmakers of today, the festival has an interesting package, says the Society secretary, S. Prakash Reddy.

The films are being screened at the Sarathi Studios preview theatre in Ameerpet everyday from 6 p.m. onwards. For movie buffs fed on a diet of indigestible and repugnant films, this will definitely be a whole different world. One that is wholesome and enriching.

By K.V.S. Madhav

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Section  : Southern States
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