The 4th Thrissur International Film Festival (TIFF) started with Amit Rai’s Road to Sangam at Thrissur, the cultural capital of Kerala on 21st August. The festival was inaugurated by veteran Malayalam filmmaker P. Ramadas at the Kairali Theatre. The director of Newspaper Boy, the first neorealist film in Malayalam cinema, stressed the need for promoting in Indian films a culture that was totally native. Where the Chief Guest, Mahatma Gandhi’s great grandson Tushar Gandhi opposed the intolerance attitude among people towards the support of ban and censorship. Delivering the keynote address, Tushar Gandhi lamented growing intolerance in society. He said - “The latest instance is the opposition to Jaswant Singh’s remarks on Mohammed Ali Jinnah. What harm can Jinnah to do us now, sixty years after he is no more, even if had done any harm during his life-time? The reaction shows how fragile our society is”. The BJP’s decision to expel Jaswant Singh from the party and Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi’s decision to ban the book in Gujarat, Tushar Gandhi said, “instead of these direct actions, the BJP and Modi should have countered the book in a democratic way through an intellectual debate on the issue”. He noted that Indians were increasingly being hostile to different opinions. “We are in danger of being autocratic. Why should we stoop to the level of a bully? It shows our weakness”, he added.

Road to Sangam, the film in which he played a part, as Tushar Gandhi himself. “I agreed to be in it because the film conveys an important message of unity. Sangam or ‘confluence’ symbolically means a coming together of people or hearts. This is the second time I am appearing in a film. The first time it was Kamal Hassan’s Hey Ram. In both the films I play myself” he said.

TIFF will pay homage to actor Bharat Murali, writer Lohitadas, Producer Shobhana Parameswaran Nair and director Sakti Samanta with their films - Gershome, Bhoothakannadi, Murappennu and Howrah Bridge respectively. The Nostalgia section will showcase A. Vincent’s Bhargavi Nilayam, Bimal Roy’s Do bigha Zamin, K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam and P. Bhaskaran’s Nayaru Pidicha Pulival, while the Retrospective section will show veteran Japanese filmmaker Nagisha Oshima’s - The Ceremony, Dear Summer Sister, Death by Hanging and Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, Iranian filmmaker Dariush Meherjui’s The Cow, Leila, The Pear Tree and Santoori, Gautam Ghose’s Dakhal (The Occupation), Paar (The Crossing), Padma Nadir Majhi (The Boatman of river Padma) and Abar Aranye (In the forest … again) and also with the Hungarian filmmaker Ferenc Moldovanyi’s Another Planet, The Way and Children: Kosovo 2000.

K. L. Jose, the Executive Director of TIFF, said, “due to the global recession and the recent economic situation not permitted us to showcase cinema from the various part of the world. Though some filmmaker and producers were kind enough to give permition to show their films but due to the huge freight charges we had to drop some foreign films. We have got films from the French Cultural Centre and the Iranian Cultural Centre and also reputed film house like UTV and Big Pictures“.

Jose also mentioned that, “this year we have started the Women Gazes section, where we will showcase the talented Indian women filmmakers work like - Pamela Rook’s Dance like a man, Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay and Kamasutra, Kalpana Lazmi’s Rudaali, Suma Jasson’s Janmadinam, Deepa Mehta’s Fire, Farida Mehta’s Kali Salwar and Prema Karanth’s Bandh Jharokhe. This is pity that we were not able to get any film of Aparna Sen in this section”.

The cultural capital of Kerala - Thrissur, will witness for next seven days, some best of the contemporary Indian films from various part of the sub continent. While Shyam Benegal’s Welcome to Sajjanpur, Suman Mukhopadhyay’s Chaturanga (Four Chapters, Bengali), M. S. Sathyu’s Ijjodu (The Incompatible, Kannada), Joseph Pullinathan’s Yarwng (Root, Kakborok from Tripura), Ramesh Laxman More’s Mahasatta (Marathi), Umesh Kulkarni’s Valu (Marathi), Priyadarshan’s Kanchivaram (Tamil), Neeraj Pandey’s A Wednesday, Paresh Mokashi’s Harishchandra’s Factory (Marathi), Mani Maniram’s Mon Jai (I feel like, Assamese), Sasi’s Poo (Flower, Tamil), Anjan Dutt’s Chowrasta Crossroads of love will be on the point of attraction of the audience as these films already been shown in various Indian as well as foreign film festivals and well appreciated. Recent new unreleased films like Manan Singh Katohora’s When Kiran Met Karen on sensitive topics of lesbianism, Gobindbhai Patel’s Dholi Taaro Dhol Waage - first time Gujarati film in TIFF, Sudeshna Roy and Abhijit Guha’s Cross Connection (Bengali), actress-director-Member of Parliament Satabdi Roy’s Dhakee (Drummer, Bengali) and Partha Sarathi Joardar’s Phera (The Return) will going to be International Premiere, also Rituparno Ghosh’s Sob Choritro Kalponik (Afterword), Bipasha Basu acted Bengali films will be Asia Premiere and Dr. Baraguru Ramchandrappa’s Ugragami (Terrorist, Kannada), Bachapatimayum Sunzu and Saikhom Ratan’s Manipuri film My Cousin’s Village, Prabhakar Shukla’s Bindiya and Rohit Kaushik’s Chehere (Faces) will be the World Premiere at TIFF. Chehere the multi starrier suspense thriller is follows the 40s-50s era of Hindi film making through the acting, dialogue and costume style. The another plus point of Chehere is that, it’s only revels the suspense at the extreme last scene of the film. Avantika Hari’s Land Gold Women will be India Premiere as the film is talking about another burning issue - honour killing, which is not only a common practice in developing country like India but also strongly active in people’s mind those who are settled in developed countries like the UK and USA.

TIFF will show three recent Malayalam films, Jairaj’s Gulmohar, Rajeev Nath’s Pakal Nakshtrangal and Madhu Kaithapuram’s Madhya Venal, while the center attraction will be Brazilian filmmaker’s Cao Hamburger’s The Year My parents went on vacation and on 27th August the festival will conclude with Closing Film - Sikander, directed by Piyush Jha.

Santanu Ganguly