Indian Panorama

By Utpal Borpujari
New Delhi, Oct 24: Marathi cinema has scored it big in the Indian Panorama for the forthcoming International Film Festival of India in Goa, with Ramesh Laxman More’s Mahasatta selected to represent India in the IFFI Competition and Pushkaraj Paranjape’s Dohaa and Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni’s Valu nominated for the prestigious section.

Comedy king Priyadarshan’s serious look the weaving industry people of Tamil Nadu – Kanjivaram – will be the other Indian representation in the competition.

The Indian Panorama will open with Yarwng, a film by Joseph Pulinthanath in the Kokborok language spoken by tribals in Tripura, a language in which films are rarely made since it is spoken by a small community that more or less does not have access to cinema theatres.

The seven-member jury for feature films, headed by Telugu director K N T Sastry, has recommended 25 films to the Panorama after going through 104 entries.

Incidentally, five films in the Panorama – A Wednesday by Neeraj Pandey, Jodha Akbar by Ashutosh Gowariker, Taare Zameen Par by Aamir Khan, Valu by Kulkarni And Billa (Tamil) By Vishnu Vardhan – have been selected out of 11 shortlisted separately by the Film Federation of India (FFI) to represent mainstream cinema in lieu of the now-discontinued Mainstream section.

But it is Malaylam cinema that has struck it rich as usual, with seven films in the language getting selected: Vilapangalkkappuram (T V Chandran), Gulmohar (Jayaraj), Atayalangal (M G Sasi), Oru Pennum Randaanum (Adoor Gopalakrishnan), Aakashagopuram (P Sukumaran), Katha Parayumpol (Mohanan) and Pulijanmam (Priyanandan, as the winner of the best film in National Awards).

Three Tamil films – Kalloori (Balaji Sakthivel), Kanachivaram (Priyadarshan) and Mudhal Mudhal Mudhal Varai (Krishna Seshadri Gomatam) – and an equal number of Kannada films – Gulabi Talkies (Girish Kasarvalli), Banada Neralu (Umashankara Swamy) and Gubbachigalu (Abhaya Simha) – have been selected.

Noted scriptwriter Sooni Taraporevala’s debut directorial venture Little Zizou (English/Gujarati), Suman Mukhopadhyay’s Chaturanga (Bengali), M Maniram’s Mon Jai (Assamese), V Eshwar Reddy’s Mee Sreyobhilashi and Suhail Tatari’s Summer 2007 are the other selections.

The jury for the Non-Feature Films, headed by Anjan Bose, has recommended 20 films out of 82 entries, including Umesh Kulkarni’s Three of Us.


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