With Hollywood enriching itself with international casts, audience’s fascination naturally migrates towards international film. Mainstream cinema touches on the typical integral themes, almost making films predictable. But with the resurgence of world cinema’s popularity in Hyderabad, more people are waking up to this realm of ‘think globally, screen locally.’
Double exposure
Institutions such as Goethe-Zentrum and Alliance Française are teeming with several screenings a month. Obviously, the rate at which we learn languages can be accelerated by watching films and these places have taken advantage of that. Be it the vintage epochs, the recently released award winners or the little known independent projects, such venues offer a spectrum of film which touches on issues such as millennial Eurocentrism, rather life of European youngsters harrowed by economic and political disparity.
COIMBATORE, 16/02/2008: A scene from German film 'Crazy' screened by Goethe Zentrum in Coimbatore on February 16, 2008. Directed by Hans Christian Schmid, the film is about young Benni, a partially paralysed kid who has one last chance to prove to his parents that he can function in the academic world, and, most importantly, pass math. The film won Schmid great praise for its honest portrait of teenage life. Photo: M. Periasamy
German film, in particular, have consistently drawn in Hyderabadis for its nuanced approaches to marginalised issues. In Germany, films have been historically well funded. The city and the rest of the world can now look forward to higher production value after German Chancellor Angela Merkel approved of a €50 million investment in the industry this year, which means more movies being produced at feature film budgets. The city continues to frequent movies based on war-time Germany and Goethe-Zentrum’s recent screening of Naked Among Wolves reignited a discourse on the struggles on political prisoners which Indian watchers could draw on, in some shape or form.
France has always been a scope for romantic film in the early 1900s, but Alliance Française Hyderabad has been an active portal to the deeper and more evocative side of the country’s cinemascape. In the 1950s, the French New Wave brought on a genre of film that melded typical Hollywood plot lines with more philosophical undertones, instantly winning the hearts of Hyderabadis. Perhaps by avoiding the saturation of predictability, French film has always been light years ahead of the rest of us. Tomboy and French-Turkish creation Noor touch on the currently provoking theme of gender identity and challenged Hyderabadis’ notions of ‘the binary,’ which explains why these are often rewatched.
Hyderabad Film Club and Cinephiles Film Club are just two of the many meet-ups formed in the city for like-minded movie-lovers who want to view beyond their borders. While these groups may not detract from places such as Alliance Française and Goethe-Zentrum, they do simulate a familial welcomeness through controversial films from Russia, Sweden and Iran. Expect featured panels from local filmmakers, as Cinephiles Film Club does, who provide insight on universal film which encourages budding filmmakers in their reach and potential.
Festival fulfilment
Circles such as these are known for their film festivals. In mid-May, Hyderabad Film Club delved into Vietnamese film as a celebration of the 45th Anniversary of Indo-Vietnam Diplomatic Relations, proving the arts are instrumental in cementing allegiances. Like Germany, Vietnamese film has been largely shaped by the conflict the country has faced historically, namely the Vietnam War and the Indochina War. While this festival did not screen the most prominent films, it certainly portrayed some of Vietnam’s beauty and culture as well as its divisive struggle and history.
Another largely successful celebration of film was the Nazariya International Women’s Film Festival which aggrandised the feminine power in society and in the industry. Projects such as Human , a documentary that took over three years to film in 60 countries, follows the identity and locale of women around the world, instantly making it a brutally honest and pervasive film for Hyderabadis. The film festival in its entirety covered some of the fundamental issues women around the world face: female genital mutilation, sexual identity crises, socio-economic inequalities and patriarchal control, just to name a few.
The objective of these festivals are not just to re-popularise films the city may have set aside, but also to revisit these poignant projects with continually enlightened mindsets, which is far more empowering. With our own contentious history, immersing ourselves in these movies can bring out empathy when we draw parallels on themes such as secularism and cultural appropriation. For the burgeoning population of budding filmmakers, international film offers various inputs on cinematography, costume design and other behind the scenes aspects. As a result, these film clubs are not just attracting millennials but also the elderly who never got a chance to see these films in such an open environment.
