THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: What made the 20th IFFK a huge success were not the films, though some of the finest were on show, but the punctilious groundwork the organisers had done to keep the highly temperamental IFFK delegates satisfied. There were years when the best of films were screened and yet the delegates had felt deeply disappointed.
This time, knowing that a satisfied delegate is the key to success, the Chalachithra Academy ensured three things: smooth theatre entry, high-quality viewing, and a glitch-free reservation system. Last year, the reservation system had to be dismantled two days into the festival.
"Then the server was in Czechoslovakia, and it was virtually impossible to correct every little snag that occurs here. This time, the control was with a firm in Technopark. Right from film submission to delegate reservation, everything was managed by the firm in Technopark," said academy secretary Rajendran Nair.
Once the management process was streamlined, getting screening centres was the next challenge. Last year, with big theatres like Athulya and Anjali not available, the total seats for 12,000 delegates shrunk to 4,500. Anarchy ruled.
This time, the organisers managed to get nearly 8,000 seats, though the newly-renovated city theatres had reduced their seating capacity.
It is not just enough to have screens, they should also provide top-notch viewing experience. "Thanks to Shaji N. Karun's network, we could manage to bring the top technicians of Qube and UFO here for the entire duration of the festival. This has never happened before," Rajendran Nair said.
"If at all there were glitches, we knew they could be sorted out in no time," he added. High-quality projection systems were rented and installed in Sreekumar and Nishagandhi, and Tagore Theatre, which only had a stereo system, was given Dolby facilities for the seven days.
As for delegate reservation, a 60:40 ratio was introduced. "There are delegates who are not mobile or Net savvy. That's why we kept 40 per cent of seats in a theatre for direct entry,"
Rajendran Nair said. Further, to minimise inconvenience, both the reserved queue and the non-reserved queue were allowed to enter simultaneously.
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