The Bengaluru International Short Film Festival (BISFF), India’s only Oscar Accredited film festival, commenced on August 3 and will go on till August 13.
The brain child of Anand Varadarajan, BISFF was founded to create a platform for young and amateur filmmakers, to screen their short films for constructive critical feedback.
This year, the festival features seminars on VFX, Animation in the new AI World (a discussion with experts Jasbinder Singh, Prajwal Vas and Vinod) and Script, Screenplay and Beyond with people including Chaitanya Hegde, Abhishek Iyengar, Pooja Sudhir on the panel, moderated by Prakash Belawadi. The Future is Female featuring Meghana Raj, Geetha Gurappa, Sumana Kittur and Champa Shetty is moderated by Vasanti Hariprakash. Rajendra Singh Babu (film director and producer), actors Shruti Hariharan and Mandya Ramesh are some of the jury members for the Indian and Karnataka competition sections, while Sumana is on the jury for the International competition segment.
Meghana Raj, a commercially successful actor and who comes from a theatre background, talks of her role in BISFF and the space of women in the world of cinema.
Meghana is thrilled to be a part of the festival and says “Women in cinema have been celebrated to a certain extent. We are celebrated more in front of the camera. If you are a woman and are in cinema it is an unsaid understanding that you will be before the camera. It can be a lead or a supporting role, but acting is what has been dominant for years. It is not so anymore. Women, off late have started exploring the varied technical fields of cinema. I saw this change gradually since 2000. We have had women film makers including Roopa Iyer, Sumana Kittur. I am focussing just on the Kannada film industry.”
The actor made her acting debut in the 2009 with the Telugu film Bendu Apparao R.M.P. “It was after the 2000s, that women flourished in various aspects of filmmaking, besides direction and acting. We saw women foraying into the field of makeup, music direction, sound design, cinematography, animation and so on. I have always had a male make up artistes and hairstylists. Today, when I get on to a set, I see women assistant directors, costume designers and more. It is amazing to see women flourish in so many aspects of filmmaking.”
This is what Meghana will speak about in the seminar at the festival, she says. “I want to celebrate women in cinema and give a loud cheer to the women who have made a successful foray in their respective fields.”
The fact that women do not thrive as well as their male counterparts in cinema is troubling to Meghana. “Though there are a handful of women who have made their mark, I think this is still a male-dominated field. We women are there, do get recognised and opportunities, yet, men hold the upper hand. This ratio, is still up for debates and discussions”.
Meghana, who won the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 2018 Kannada film, Iruvudellava Bittu, says she enjoyed the films she watched at BISFF. “What stumped me is the subtlety of emotions. There are emotions such as anger, sadness, joy and love that are explored while those in between are ignored. For instance, there is a thin line between love and lust or anger and sadness. This thin line is what I saw being explored in most short films. Human emotions are always in shades of grey. There is no black or white there. These are the aspects that make the short films so interesting and give them a great storyline. Not just the direction and the making, even the actors have done a brilliant job. Since we are concentrating on women this time, from the films that I have watched, women have done a brilliant job of being subtle in front of the camera, while giving the role their all.”
A still from the short film How Are You that is screened at BISFF | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Speaking about woman-oriented films such as Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway, Meghana says, “It was a brilliant film, the direction, acting everything... But, will our people watch a film like that if we made it? Any investor, will think a hundred times, before giving a nod as returns are also important. Let’s take Mrs Chatterjee... and Rocky aur Rani ki Prem Kahani. It is the latter that will see greater footfalls in theatres, while the former will get a select set of audience. KGF is a brilliantly made film, but loaded with testosterone in every frame. Women on screen need to be rescued by the men. It is only once in a way, a film like Kantara succeeds. The woman protagonist in this film is strong and not a damsel in distress, who needs to be rescued, which was refreshing.”
BISFF is accessible virtually and at Suchitra and at Max Mueller Bhavan (from August 10 to 13). Short film buffs can log on to www.bisff.in to watch the films.
