As International Film Festival of Kerala turns 20, DC talks to youngsters who were inspired by the festival to turn filmmakers
K R Manoj
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The IFFK, for K R Manoj, is more a mate than a godfather. He has already been watching and in love with independent cinema when the very first IFFK had happened in Kozhikode.
Manoj, then a post-graduate student, had already seen the whole package, that Soorya had screened as part of ‘100 Years of World Cinema’. It was a repetition in Kozhikode.
And since the next year he has been so much a part of the festival that his role would change from coordinating one part of it or another – in the open forum or in the festival book production.
But then he keeps going back as a viewer, curious and passionate for more of cinema. It became a place to sustain that passion, a battery charger. When he came to the IFFK two years ago with his own film – Kanyaka Talkies – Manoj had been a nervous wreck.
“I had been clueless on how the audience will receive it. I had a feeling about the taste the IFFK audience had for a particular narrative mix. I feel a majority of them may not accept an experimental narrative that did not fall into that. And the narrative journey of my film had slightly varied from that space. But it had been received a lot better than I expected,” he says.
And he doesn’t mean a hall packed with viewers. He means the discussions that happened in the months and years that follow. “Even this year, some girls came and spoke to me about my film.”
The IFFK had grown in many ways over the years. Manoj had seen it grow into the different departments it has now, from the first years when people from the film society movement, like himself, were roped in.
“Last year, after a lot of work, and through Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s recommendation, we had a film market to support Malayalam cinema. Till then the IFFK had lacked a market with a proper orientation. Last year it took shape, to place Malayalam cinema in the world, and curators from other countries could pick it up. But this year, for some reason it has been wound up. We have received world cinema for all these years but they closed the gateway for our films to reach a foreign audience. It has deeply saddened me as a filmmaker.”
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( Source : deccan chronicle )
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