LED screen showing Hollywood movies at Kolkata International Film Festival
If you thought film festivals were high-brow events only for the creme de la creme, think again. The 21st Kolkata International Film Festival - budget roughly Rs 8 crore - is being taken to the people. You can actually drop into your neighbourhood park, grab a chair and watch a Hollywood classic. For free.
It is West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's effort to make the festival inclusive. From Sunday evening, a couple of mini-trucks have been driving into three or four city parks, raising a 5x8 foot LED screen stuck to its roof and showing movies straight from Hollywood.
However, there are some glitches. At Harish Park on Wednesday, they were to show Sound of Music at 6 pm. The mini-truck arrived at 7 pm but couldn't get the movie going. File corrupted, they said. Another van arrived at 8 pm and rolled Guns of Navarone till the men manning the computers saw lots of children around, so switched to ET.
The audience hadn't heard of any of the three films, most could not speak English or understand it very well. But here was Hollywood at their doorstep. Shubhadeep, a class 6 student, said, "I don't know English, But I can see the pictures. It's an alien and it is fun." Rekha Bakshi sitting nearby said, "We would never go to a hall, buy tickets and watch this film. But now that it is here, it is great. A very good idea."
At Deshapriya Park, The Good, the Bad and The Ugly was showing on Tuesday. Only 10 or so of the 100 chairs put out were occupied, mostly by children from a nearby slum. And out of the mouth of babes came this suggestion. "It is nice. But why don't they show us Bengali movies?"
The hoi polloi may prefer Bengal's big star Dev to Clint Eastwood, But Mamata Banerjee wants them to connect to world cinema. Information secretary Atri Bhattacharya, in charge of the "paraye paraye Hollywood"(Hollywood in your neighbourhood) project, says, "Films are meant to be fun and not just subject of discussion on jump cuts. The chief minister wants people to see great films and enjoy."
The pitfalls, however, are plain. The audio is poor, the pictures grainy and screen not 70 mm. And of course there is the language issue. But flawed execution apart, the people's film festival is an idea that certainly holds promise.