“The main objective of the film festival was to showcase our creative capabilities,” says O.V.R.M. Rajkumar, one of the coordinators for the Sourashtra language film festival, which featured five full-fledged feature films and 10 shortfilms.
Over a period of time many eminent film personalities have emerged from the community. To name a few, popular play back singer T. M. Soundararajan, actors P.V. Narasimha Bharathy, A.L. Raghavan, M.N. Rajam, Seetha and Venniradai Nirmala made a mark in the industry. There were also producers who made films casting M.G.R. and Sivaji Ganesan. “But none of them showed any interest to produce a film in their mother tongue,” says Rajkumar.
With the advent of technology and overwhelming enthusiasm among youngsters, a lot of short films are made in the language. “As producing feature films involves high budget and marketing the product is also difficult, many youngsters have taken the easier path of making short films and documentaries. Especially, more films were produced in the past five years. This has been the main reason for organising the festival, as there are not many avenues to screen these films,” he says.
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Some of the films shown included ‘Hamsadvani’ by T.R. Mothilal, ‘Hadhu Mago’ by O.V.R.M. Rajkumar and Sourashtra Mithran films, ‘Panduranga’ by A.G.R. Movies, ‘Genam’ (prestige) by R.K. Baskar and ‘Prev Vekkili’ (In search of love) by K.R. Jawahar,
‘Hadu Mago’ talks about the weaving community and their plight. Their inherent survival instinct is well captured in the film. “We can endure any adversary and the film touches upon the liking for living together in a community,” says Rajkumar.
Special screenings were also organised where selective short films including the 3D movie ‘The Magician’ were screened. “We planned his festival for more than 18 months, when we found that cinema houses were not willing to screen our movies,” he says.
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With more than four lakh Sourashtrians living in Madurai and suburbs, there is a strong case of more films coming out in the language. “Till date public response for Sourashtra language films has not been overwhelming. We have organised this festival to create awareness among our people about our films,” he says.
The two-day festival drew people from various places including Thanjavur, Kanchipuram and Salem. “We expected more but only 200 came from outside for this festival,” says Rajkumar.