IFFI lacks in programming: Adoor

Malayalam filmmaker Adoor Gopalkrishnan, who praised the atmosphere at the 38th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) ending Monday, is however, not satisfied with selection of films and programming.

"In terms of film festival, it has an excellent ambience this year. Now it looks like the people in the campus are seriously interested in Cinema. Projection is excellent in all the cinema halls. You cannot expect this quality of projection anywhere in the country. They are as good as anywhere in the Europe," Adoor told IANS.

Two of his films were screened at the festival. His recently released "Naalu Pennungal", a screen adaptation of famous Malayalam author Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai's short stories, was screened in the feature film section of Indian Panorama and "The Dance Of The Enchantress" was shown in the non-feature film division. Addor strongly feels that films shouldn't be randomly selected for the festival.

"Film loving people should select the films for the festival. It is not like somebody has sent you films and you are choosing from that. You have to go around seeing films and then decide which films should be shown. "Whosoever is programming this festival should have seen all the films. They should be able to tell the audiences what films to be seen. For that you have to be knowledgeable you have to really love cinema and you will also have to share your knowledge with others," he said.

There are many who agree with the director and say films like "Full Circle" and "The Eigth Day of the Week" were not worth screening in a festival of this stature.
Adoor feels that to match up with the other international festivals, their pattern of selecting films should be followed.

Other problem he pointed out was the programming.
He said: "The programming is not as good as the atmosphere. You can put more attention to programmes. Something like Master Class was badly placed. It was kept just after the screening - after watching two hours long movie who would like to sit in a class and discuss the film. Some people might be hungry and would like to eat. While I was taking the Master Class someone asked me to hold it for a while so that he can go and fetch something for himself to eat."