The last open forum of the week-long festival saw a heated debate on the criteria for including films in the Malayalam Cinema Today segment of the IFFK.
Filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, who inaugurated the forum, raised the matter of inclusion of 12 films in the Malayalam Cinema Today segment. Mr. Gopalakrishnan said the number of films had been increasing gradually. Moreover, nearly half the films were commercial ones that had run in cinemas.
Fund allocation
The selected films, he pointed out, were being given an aid of ₹2 lakh each for subtitling and other finishing touches. So, a chunk of this money was going to filmmakers who did not really require these funds. The number of films should be capped to less than a handful. This would make more funds available to filmmakers, especially to those who made films on a shoestring budget.
He called for better selection of films and for awards not directly connected with cinema to be given away the day before the main awards ceremony as was the convention at international festivals.
In response to Mr. Gopalakrishnan, IFFK festival director Kamal said 92 Malayalam films had come before the selection committee this year. Of them, 14 had been selected on the basis of a subcommittee recommendation — two for the Competition and 12 for the Malayalam Cinema Today segment. Since a large number of the entries (nearly 50 this year) were by first-time filmmakers, a decision was made to increase the total number of films in the segment and include six new filmmakers. He also stressed the impartiality of the process.
Mr. Gopalakrishnan clarified that films included in the segment should be premiered at the festival.
IFFK artistic director Bina Paul pointed out that having film premieres at the festival would require a huge increase in the festival budget.
Filmmaker Bijukumar Damodaran, who was part of the subcommittee that decided on the films in Malayalam Cinema Today, said the recommendation for a Kerala premiere for these films had not been implemented yet. T.K. Rajeevkumar, filmmaker, called for efforts to tap the potential of the festival and the audience it had nurtured to showcase the best of Malayalam cinema and take them to the best festivals across the globe.
