The Bangalore centre of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (BVB) has provided an opportunity for movie buffs to watch 14 selected films of national-award winning director T.S. Nagabharana.
He is one of the few directors to have straddled the worlds of both mainstream and parallel cinema.
As the first chairperson of Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy, Mr. Nagabharana developed a road map for it and envisaged programmes to provide academic character to the institution.
Besides screening his landmark films, the BVB has created a platform for the audience to interact with Mr. Nagabharana to get a greater understanding of the subjects that he has dealt with in the past three decades.
The weeklong festival will screen five internationally recognised movies, eight national-level award winning films and one children’s film.
Aakasmika , Janumada Jodi and Asphota, which have bagged State awards, were screened on Sunday. Later, Mr. Nagabharana interacted with the audience.
Inaugurating Nagabharana Cinemavarana (unveiling films of Nagabharana), writer, and theatre and film personality H.G. Somashekara Rao described Mr. Nagabharana as a “verbal and visual magic creator.”
“Mr. Nagabharana choose socially relevant subjects and handled them with sensitivity. He experimented with parallel, bridge and commercial genres and strived to create a good film culture. The preparations he makes before taking up an assignment is astonishing,” he said.
Mr. Nagabharana underlined the importance of “reading” films instead of merely watching them. He attributed his success to theatre and theatre movements, which groomed his sensibilities.
Regretting that cinema, of late, had become “no man’s land” like politics, he said every creative person had a social responsibility to discharge, through the medium he wants to communicate.
H.N. Suresh, BVB director, said the objective of the film festival was to introduce youngsters to quality films that carry a message that could be useful in their daily lives. “The BVB plans to hold weeklong film festivals every year henceforth,” he said.
A seminar on the life and works of Mr. Nagabharana will be held on September 20. Filmmaker Girish Kasarvalli will preside over this seminar. Rajya Sabha member and artiste B. Jayashree will participate in the valedictory function.
The BVB recently held festivals of films of R. Nagendra Rao and G.V. Iyer.
