With Awards Raining at the 8th PIFF 2010, Curtains Come Down
IMP News Wire January 20, 2010
Pyarelal Sharma of the Laxmikant Pyarelal, music director duo was conferred with the prestigious newly constituted S D Burman International award for creative music and sound at the hands of Dev Anand, while both Dr Shriram Lagoo and Rajesh Khanna were given the Life Time achievement awards at the hands of Dev Anand and santoor maestro Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma respectively at the star studded inaugural function of the 8th Pune International Film Festival - 2010 in Pune at the Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir.
The Opening attraction of PIFF was About Elly, a gripping Persian film directed by Asghar Farhadi. PIFF showcased over 70 films from around 52 countries all over the world. Present at the spectacular evening, where Sudesh Bhosle and his son Siddhanth Bhosle regaled the dignitaries present with their songs in tribute to S D Burman and Pyarelal, were MP Suresh Kalmadi, who is the Chairman of PIFF, Sabina Sanghvi, the Vice Chairperson, State Home minister Ramesh Bagwe, State Finance Minister Sunil Tatkare and Resool Pokkutty, who was felicitated with a Puneri pagdi, Subhash Ghai, Rahul Bose, Konkana Sen Sharma, Jackie Shroff, Mugdha Ghodse, Amrita Khanvilkar and Dr Jabbar Patel, the Director of PIFF since its inception seven years ago.
Sunil Tatkare declared that Maharashtra Government, which is the organizer of the PIFF from this year, will hike the budget from Rs 50 lakhs to Re 1 crore from the next year bowing down to the request of Suresh Kalmadi and Dr Jabbar Patel, who had earlier stated on the stage that even the International Film Festival of Kerala was being given a budget of Rs 4 crores by the Kerala Government.
In the Indian Cinema section, films like Seema Kapoor’s Haat The Weekly Bazar, Prashanta Nanda’s Oriyan film Jianta Bhoota, P Suneel Kumar Reddy’s Telugu film Sontha Vooru, Tamil films like Cheran’s Pokkisham, Arun Vaidyanathan’s Achamundu Achamundu, Pandiraj’s Pasanga etc, P R Ramadasa Naidu’s Kannada film Beli Matthu Hola, Atanu Ghosh’s Bengali film Angshumner Chhobi, Hiren Bora’s English film Basundhara The Earth, Jai Tank’s Hindi film Madholal Keep Walking, Amit Dutta’s Hindi film Aadmi Ki Aurat Aur Anya Kahaniyan and Shyamaprasad, Lal Jose, Shaji Kailas, Unnikrishnan, Revathy and Anwar’s Kerala Café, a compilation of ten different short films in Malayalam were showcased
In the Bimal Roy retrospective section, films like Madhumati,, Sujata, Bandini, Devdas, Parakh and Do Bigha Zameen were showcased as tribute to the late filmmaker. Films made by Manoel de Oliveira were also showcased in the Retrospective section. The French New Wave section had a package consisting of the choicest new wave films made in France, like Bay of The Angels,Crazy Pete, Elevator To The Scaffold, The Baker’s Girl of Monceau, Cleo From 5 to 7, Jules & Jim, Handsome and Alphaville.
In the section Country Focus: Cuban films like Manuel Perez Paredes’s Pages from Mauricio’s Diary and The Man from Maisinicu, Pavel Giroud’s The Silly Age and Omerta, Cremata and Iraida Malberti Cabera’s Viva Cuba, Rebecca Chavez’s City In Red, Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s The Last Supper and Memories of Underdevelopment were shown. In the section Country Focus: Hungary, Hungarian films like Benedek Filegauf’s Milky Way, Agnes Pusztai’s Fresh Air, Adnban Robert Pejo’s Dallas Among Us, Attila Janish’s After The Day Before, Zoltan Kamondi and Adam Bodor’s Dolina, Jeremy Haft’s Tamara, Kisztina Deak’s Bonnie & Clyde, Sandor KardosIlles Szabo’s Winning Ticket were showcased, while in the section on Country Focus: Slovenia, Slovenian films like Maja Weiss’ Installation of Love, Hanna Antonina Wojcik-Slak’s Blind Spot, Metod Pevec’ s Estrellita, Boris Palcic’s Transition were showcased.
In the section Contemporary German Cinema, films like Andreas Dresen’s Whisky With Vodka,Chrisatian Petzoid’s Jerichow and Yella, Carline Link’s A Year Ago in Winter, Florian Gallenberger’s John Rabe and Hans -Christian Schmid’s The Tribunal were shown.
Tributes were paid to the veterans who we had lost in recent times like Beena Rai, Chittranjan Kolhatkar, Leela Naidu, Feroz Khan, Dilip Chitre, Prakash Mehra, Tapan Sinha, Ali Akbar Khan, Nilu Phule, Bhaskarkar, Abrar Alvi and Shakti Samanta, besides Tuli Pinelli and Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, with films like Godam, Zanjeer, Aradhana, Kshudita Paashan, Anuradha, Samana, Qurbani, Rough Treatment, Anarkali and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. In the section Gems from National Film Archives of India, films like Larry Peerce’s The Incident, Awtar Krishna Kaul’s 27 Down,Satyajit Ray’s Pratidwandi, Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise’s West Side Story, Istvan Szabo’s Age of Day Dreaming and Luis Bunuel’s The Forgotten Ones were showcased .
Lara Dutta, who was seen at the concluding function and Arjun Rampal, who was seen at the lavish party hosted by Suresh Kalmadi , Chairman of Pune International Film Festival at the Foodlink Court, were the only two who represented Bollywood in Pune, besides Atul Kulkarni, Nagesh Bhosle and Renuka Shahane. Though Yash Chopra, Hema Malini, Manmohan Shetty, Shyam Shroff and Subhash Ghai are on the advisory board of Pune Film Foundation, only Subhash Ghai was present all through the festival this year. Suresh Kalmadi stated that there are plans to spread the festival next year to Pimpri, Chinchwad and also Kalyani Nagar to whet the appetite of Punekars, who had thronged in large numbers this year to the cinema houses like E Square, Fame, City Pride and Inox that the registration counter had to be closed after it touched a staggering 6500 figure.
Dr Jabbar Patel said that seven Marathi films vied with one another for the awards in the Marathi Films Competition section, like Gajendra Ahire’s Pail To Sumbaran, Renuka Shahane’s Rita, Ravi Jadhav’s Natrang, Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni’s Vihir, Rajeev Patil’s Paangira, Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukhtankar’s Ek Cup Chya and last but not the least Nagesh Bhosale’s Ghosta Chhoti Dongra Evdi. The Best Marathi Film award was bagged by Natrang produced by Zee Talkies and directed by Ravi Jadhav. The cash prize of Rs 5 lakhs and a trophy were shared by the director as well as the producer. The trophy for the Best Director award as well as a cash prize of Rs 25,000 went to Umesh Kulkarni for Vihir while Atul Kulkarni bagged the trophy for The Best Actor as well a cash prize of Rs 25,000 for his performance in Natrang. Renuka Shahane bagged the trophy for the Best Screenplay award as well as a cash prize for Rita. Special mention was made by the Jury for Kishore Kadam for his excellent performance in Paangira. The Jury also recommended a special mention for Sudhir Palsane, for cinematography for Vihir. The cash awards were given away by Akhil Bharatiya Chitrapat Maha Mandal.
The ARRI Young Cinematographer of the year award went to Shubham Kasera for his work as the cinematographer in the film Mai from the Whistling Woods International. Incidentally ARRI & Whistling Woods International have come forth this year onwards with a special award that would not only reward him or her for his work but also play a big part in kick starting his or her career. The winning student was also awarded the use of ARRI’s latest HD Camera, the Alexa for a period of 150 days over the next two years. Not just that, but the student will also have Rohan Sippy as his mentor. This will go a long way in jumpstarting a young cinematographer’s career, said Subhash Ghai while giving away the award.
In the International Competition section, a trophy and a cash prize of Rs 5 lakhs each went to the producers Mike Downey and Sam Taylor and director Dominic Murphy for White Lightnin. The Best Director award and a cash prize of Rs 5 lakhs went to Maria Prochazkova for Who Is Afraid of The Wolf. While a trophy for Special Jury award went to Ms Paprika Steen, the actress of Applause (Denmark), a special mention was recommended by the Jury to The Happiest Girl In The World (Romania) and Forbidden Fruit (Finland).
Ashok Chavan, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra who was the chief guest declared that Maharashtra government would never censor a film which has already been censored by the Censor Board, because he is of the opinion that films play a vital role in reforming society by pinpointing loopholes. After handing over a cheque to Suresh Kalmadi since the government had agreed to hike the funding by the government to Rs 1 crore from the earlier promised Rs 50 lakhs, in a lighter vein, he also said that he had made it a point to retain the culture portfolio with him instead of giving it to any one else because he has been told that it has always been the norm in Maharashtra to make any Minister who has the culture portfolio as the Chief Minister. He also added that PIFF deserves to be called Maharashtra International Film Festival (MIFF) because it is the official film festival organised by Maharashtra government along with Suresh Kalmadi, Chairman of Pune Film Foundation.
- By Jyothi Venkatesh