India's ailing cinema

MOST FILM FESTIVALS the world over are not run by Governments. India is an exception. The Geethakrishnan Committee had asked New Delhi to get out of it. Easier said than done, though. For, who else will organise the annual International Film Festival of India, whose date has now been shifted from January to October. The country's cinema industry, despite its new status, continues to remain hopelessly divided. Its lack of financial transparency has made banks wary of aiding movie projects. Certainly, this industry cannot take on the additional responsibility of the Festival. It will be prudent to let the Directorate of Film Festivals - a wing of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry - continue organising the October event. But the Government must give it greater autonomy, if it is to catch up with Cannes or Venice or Berlin. The Indian Festival has any number of weaknesses and blind spots which need to be tackled at once, and the Directorate can well do without the Ministry breathing down its neck.

Sadly, the Government has very little idea of what the moving medium is all about. This year's Cannes International Film Festival revealed the Information and Broadcasting Ministry's mindset. India put up a pavilion for the first time on the French Riviera, and a large contingent of bureaucrats, and the Minister herself, went there, and found no trace of the Indian movie industry. It was, however, explained that the notice given to it was short, and this would be rectified next year. Without sounding cynical, it must be stated here that Indian actors, directors and producers, given their vast home market, are happy to be frogs in the well. They make little attempt to follow cinema elsewhere, and hence it surprises no one that they still make stuff that is poor in most aspects. Cliched plots, bad acting and even technical incompetence mar much of the nation's whopping number of films. The few that are made aesthetically and with relatively small amounts of money hardly get exhibited, and, worse, even at Cannes, the Minister spoke about promoting commercial (read big budget and often tastelessly made) pictures. The fact is that with an approach like this, we have lost the war even before the battle has begun. For, India can hardly hope to compete, at least now, with, say for instance, Hollywood, whose spectacular fare is not only far superior to ours, but is pushed and promoted by big bucks.

With the hype and excitement of Cannes behind it, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry must pause and ponder over the futility of its current methods. What sold like the proverbial hot cakes at Cannes this summer was a Satyajit Ray package. India has a few other directors who make equally meaningful cinema, and this is what must be highlighted at international movie festivals. Let us not forget that it was a Buddhadeb Dasgupta who won a Golden Lion at Venice last year, not a Ghai or a Chopra. This is, of course, not to say that they are incapable of better creations, but caught up as they are in churning out assembly line productions, they perhaps find little time to reflect. Ultimately, it is a question of good cinema versus bad cinema, not commercial against artistic. Guru Dutt and even the early Raj Kapoor made films without tags. They were box-office successes, and yet they were stimulating works of creative expression. The Government must rethink, or allow professional bodies such as the Directorate to plan out a strategy to help Indian movies.

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