In what will be a major loss for film lovers and a shot in the arm for the moral and cultural police, the Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star has decided not to programme Pakistani classic Jago Hua Savera (The Day Shall Dawn)as part of the Restored Classics Section of the weeklong event that kicks off on October 20. The reason cited in the one-sentence press release is the “current situation”.
City-based organisation Sangharsh had filed a complaint against the organisers and threatened to protest against the film at its screening. Its president, Prithvi Mhaske, had said the film is “likely to flare outrage among people”. His stand follows the directives issued by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association (IMPPA) and the Cinema Exhibitors Association against Pakistani talent and technicians in Indian films in the wake of the India-Pakistan political skirmishes.
Festival director Anupama Chopra refused to comment further, saying, “We said what we had to in the press release”.
Jago Hua Savera would have been the piece de resistance of the festival. The 1959 film, directed by A.J. Kardar, has screenplay by revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz based on an original story by Bengali writer Manik Bandopadhay. It won a top award at the first Moscow Film Festival in 1959 and was also Pakistan’s entry to the Oscars for the best foreign film.
A confluence of talent from East Pakistan, West Pakistan and India (Timir Baran co-composed the music with Nauman Taseer), the highlight of the film is an outstanding performance by Tripti Mitra (of the Indian People’s Theatre Association). About the trials and tribulations of fishermen and their exploitation at the hands of money lenders in a small village near Dhaka, it has often been described as the only neo-realist film to have emerged from Pakistan in that era.
It was recently digitally restored and screened in the Cannes Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival this year.
