Shed rituals, embrace change, says Sanalkumar Sasidharan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: At the gate of Tagore, the main IFFK venue, stood a man handing out bulletins of ‘Kazhcha Indie Film Festival’ (KIFF), widely touted as filmmaker Sanalkumar Sasidharan’s answer to IFFK. At the back, there is an interview of Shanavas Naranippuzha, director of ‘Kari’, expressing his shock that Kari was overlooked by IFFK panel. DC caught up with Sanalkumar on why KIFF came into being. “We hope that this festival would provoke changes, next year, when IFFK is put together. We hope that IFFK, which has been unable to sense new movements in cinema, undergoes corrections,” he said.

He said that IFFK has deviated from its original goals. “Now, it has become something like a ritual that needs to be got done with. It no longer has the objectives it started with – to show world cinema to Malayalis; to encourage the making of new films,” he said. He listed a lot of things that have changed about the festival, including changes made to Open Forum. “We feel this lack of purpose in the selection of films. If there are 250 films, a majority will have mass appeal, and very few movies with substance would be chosen. IFFK has not been able to select good cinema from Kerala and India. Most of the films which we chose for Kazhcha Indie Film Festival were IFFK rejects. There are films which have won accolades, in this, but still ignored by IFFK,” he said. KIFF also has an open forum called ‘Bridge’, designed as a conversation organically flowing from one person to another. The delegate pass for KIFF can be collected for '100, at the venue, Lenin Balavadi, Vazhuthacaud.