With the city’s annual film festival fast approaching on October 12, here’s the first of a series where we ask all things film-fest to Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI) board members and the film fraternity at large. In an animated chat with The Hindu, director and producer Rohan Sippy shares his few, but rich and exciting experiences at festivals over the years
What do film festivals mean to you?
That [in] one week or so you get a fantastic buffet of all kinds of things. It’s the time that, as a director, you enjoy just getting to be an active audience member for that whole duration. It’s just a great opportunity to put ideas out there, and see how much cinema connects beyond language. It’s a great way for us to just get a perspective and get out of whatever rut we’re in 51 weeks of the year.
Any experiences that have stood out?
If I remember correctly, in 1984 or ’85, IFFI (International Film Festival of India) happened to be in Bombay. One of my favourite films, which I got to see there, was a Woody Allen film called Zelig (1983). It was a novel experience. At that time this was especially amazing because this was the one time you got to see uncensored films – hard for your generation to imagine a world before the Internet. This was the world before satellite TV – before anything but Doordarshan and the cinema. At that time if we were not travelling, and if we were in India, the festival was the one little window to the world we got. We got to really see what people in the world live like, sound like, make love like, fight like… all these things that we could see without a government intervention telling you whether it was appropriate for us or not. A few years back I saw an Aki Kaurismäki film and I was ignorant of his cinema, but was amazed by it. There’s never a shortage of surprises because [with] every festival you learn how little you know, and you are humbled by your lack of knowledge and the richness of this world.
I think it was [in] 2008 when [the director] John Landis and his wife, Deborah Nadoolman, were in Goa for the film festival. They happened to be in Bombay for a few days, and I got to spend a couple of evenings with one of my heroes. He has made Animal House (1978) and The Blues Brothers (1980), and is one of the greatest comedy directors. He also made a couple of music videos that kind of changed our pop culture permanently, like [Michael Jackson’s] ‘Thriller’ (1983). His wife is an amazing, Oscar [nominated] costume designer who designed costumes on ‘Thriller’ and many other amazing films. So because of a festival, I got to spend a couple of evenings with one of my childhood heroes and really got to ask him and talk to him about so many experiences of his.
Which film festivals are your favourite, and why?
I’m not really a festival junkie though I do enjoy them, and it’s always a pleasure to get to see some of these gems. I really enjoy the NFDC (National Film Development Corporation) Film Bazaar and think it’s a wonderful initiative. It opened up a whole new dimension where people who come in are not just audiences, but that they have ways in which they can connect with each other and work. It has created a space where there are all kinds of partnerships which are possible – whether it’s a producer looking for financing or a scriptwriter looking for a producer. I think even The Lunchbox (2013) in a way benefitted from these kinds of initiatives. So we’re seeing concrete results.
In a way, MAMI is the industry’s own fest. How have you seen it grow?
My father [director Ramesh Sippy] was one of the original board members so I got to help and listen in from the first festival (1997), and literally see it grow out of a few meetings in my father’s office. We used to have it at Y.B. Chavan Centre and NCPA. All amazing pillars of the industry got together – from [producer] Yash Johar, [founder of Adlabs Films] Manmohan Shetty, my father… this is way before the whole corporate thing. These were individual producers making their concerted effort to give Bombay its own identity as a festival town. When my father and his colleagues retired, and [Festival Director] Anupama [Chopra] and [Co-Chairperson] Kiran [Rao] came in, they invited me on board.
What do you consider the most salient features of a good film festival?
I think what is important is that the audience comes out and says “good”. I don’t think there’s a single template. A place like Telluride has a very small, exclusive, expensive kind of festival that is apparently exquisitely curated. They’re not trying to show too many films, but what they show is very interesting and therefore they have a very gold standard reputation. Toronto and Berlin seem to be very city-focussed. So each place has its ways. Finally I think the spirit of the people behind the festival comes out, and the spirit of the city finally comes through. This diversity of festivals is great; otherwise it would be really boring if everything was the same. Anupama [Chopra] was telling me there is this very interesting program between cooking and cinema in Berlin. So I think there’s no end to the kind of events you can create around [cinema].
How significant are film festivals when online platforms are making world cinema so much more accessible?
Platforms like Netflix and HBO have expanded the boundaries of what is a similar cinematic experience. It’s not necessarily going to the cinemas. Their kind of storytelling is no way short of what we’re seeing on the big screen. So there’s just an amazing plethora. The [Netflix] film like Okja (2017) is such a unique film that it might not even have been made by the traditional people. A new kind of company has completely turned everything on its head – from the kind of storytelling in the film, to the way they’re getting an audience out there, to the way it makes business sense to them. Amazing disruptions are happening so it’s an extremely interesting time to be here. You have these big studios that are now dwarfed by the biggest companies in the world. We’re talking about Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook – companies that may be a trillion dollars in value in the next five years. I think five-ten years from now we will be sitting in a radically different world and we don’t even understand the kind of disruption that’s about to happen. When Cannes is rattled by Netflix, you know that there’s severe disruption happening. We are in the middle of a transition period. Things are never going to be dull.
