References to the issue surrounding the elimination of the film ‘Adimadhyantham' from the Competition Section of the 16th IFFK once again led to scenes of protest at the Open Forum on Sunday.
The discussion on ‘Identity of film festivals' had to be abruptly stopped towards the end after some speakers from the audience protested by saying that a festival that refused to give space to films from the regional language did not have the right to talk about its identity.
French film critics and curators Martine Armand and Lorey De Barbara; and critics V. Rajakrishnan, U. Radhakrishnan and Noah Davis participated in the Open Forum.
Participating in the discussion, Ms. Martine said that film festivals were for the common people who enjoyed films and not exclusively for film professionals.
On the role of festival artistic directors in selecting films, Ms. Barbara said that the presence of regional language films was crucial for film festivals.
