Maker of The Great Indian Kitchen, Jeo Baby, once took an oath that he would attend the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) only when it screened one of his own movies. It took 10 years, but Jeo's Kitchen has found a place in the IFFK's Malayalam Cinema Today category this time, and it is bringing the cheerful director back to the space that he says had changed the way he watched movies. Quite a few filmmakers have credited the annual December fest for shaping the way they viewed, learned and created their art. It is, however, not held in December any more, with COVID-19 pushing it to February last year and to March this time. The 26th edition of the IFFK begins Friday, March 18, with 173 films.
"I first attended the IFFK in 2004, when it was not so crowded. Back then, I would watch films and go to sleep at the Thampanoor railway station. There would be several Ayyappa pilgrims sharing the space with me. In the morning, I would have breakfast at the Indian Coffee House and rush to the Kairali theatre again. It was movies and only movies for days," Jeo wrote on a Facebook post, pouring dollops of nostalgia into his words. Once, he even quietly slept in the New Theatre's open forum stage, Jeo slips in. It was only when his movie attempts began to fail that he took this strange oath and stayed away, but he will not do that anymore, Jeo goes on to promise.
There will be, in the accounts of many delegates, such fond memories of the IFFK. It was after listening to a few of those that Anju, a Literature student, decided to attend the festival this year. "I have heard a lot about the IFFK from my friends and faculty. Film studies is also a part of my course. I am sure this will be a good experience," says Anju, who got her pass and kit on the day the delegate cell was inaugurated at the Tagore Theatre.
Tagore has become the main venue for the fest over the past few years, replacing the Kairali Theatre complex where once upon a time a crowd always occupied the long set of stairs outside, making new friends and chatting endlessly about cinema. Tagore is much larger, a sprawling compound around the movie halls, where gatherings take place, art evenings are celebrated and protest slogans rise.
This year, the pandemic-related restrictions of 2021 have been relaxed. The fest, which had in previous years grown to accommodate up to 14,000 delegates, has once again opened its doors to everyone with a taste for world cinema. There are nearly 10,000 registered delegates already, says an official at the Kerala Chalachitra Academy, which organises the IFFK every year.
"This is the only time I watch this many movies. My connection to festival or arthouse films happens only during this one week in an entire year, and maybe another week or so if I take the pains to watch more somehow. Also, the whole city (of Thiruvananthapuram) is nice – from the friends I meet to the autorickshaw people I ride with. There is a lot of light and colour in the city during these days, and of course there is the food," says Hari, a Bengaluru-based IT professional who often comes down for the fest and hardly misses a single show out of the five screened every day.
This year there are 15 screens, a few more than the usual number, possibly arranged to reduce crowds at each venue as the coronavirus still lurks around. From the six screens of the Ariesplex complex to the old Kairali Sree Nila, which has been newly renovated, films will be screened from 9am and go on till 11 or 12 in the night. One particular midnight, there will be a Korean horror film, says Bina Paul, artistic director of the IFFK, who has been helming the fest for many years. Titled The Medium, the film from Thailand and South Korea is aptly placed under a category called ‘Shiver Shiver’ on the IFFK page.
“You can expect a lot of excitement this year. People must also be fatigued from watching movies online. It must feel nice to get out of the house, watch films and have conversations again. The festival’s opening will be colourful. The opening film, Rehana Maryam Noor from Bangladesh, is very interesting. The main actor (Azmeri Haque Badhon) will be present at the venue. Then you have the master class this year by Anurag Kashyap (noted Hindi director). Also, Lisa Calan is coming. She walks on prosthetic legs, yet she is travelling all the way here,” Bina Paul says.
Lisa Calen / iffk.in
Lisa is a Kurdish filmmaker who lost both her legs in an ISIS bombing in 2015. It took her years of effort to start walking again (with prosthetics) and return to filmmaking. Her film, The Tongue of the Mountains, made in 2016 will be screened for the fest. She is receiving the Spirit of Cinema Award on the opening day.
There is a remarkable presence of women filmmakers at the festival this year. Seven of the 14 films are made by women from across the world. And an eighth one is co-directed by one – Natasha Merkulova who made the Russian film Captain Volkonogov Escaped with Aleksey Chupov. The others are Kamila Andini from Indonesia with Yuni, Egyptian-American filmmaker Dina Amer with You resemble me, New York-based Antoneta Kusijanović with Murina, Mounia Akl from Lebanon with Costa Brava, Nathalie Álvarez Mesén from Costa Rica with Clara Sola, Inés María Barrionuevo from Argentina with Camila Comes Out Tonight, and from Kerala, Tara Ramanujan with Forbidden.
Watch: Trailer for Yuni
Most of the women are in their 30s, born through the 80s. This is a matter of cheer for the many female delegates making their first visits to the famed festival. “We have all wanted to come before, but exams or something else at the college would always come in the way. This year we are excited to have received the passes. We hope to see a lot of nice films in varied languages and meet people from different parts of the country,” say MPhil students Aswathy, Shonima and Keerthy. One of them is researching the power dynamics in man-woman relationships in Malayalam cinema (sthree-purusha athikara bandam).
Film students and enthusiasts also look forward to the IFFK’s ‘Restored Classics’ section, in which six films from different parts of the world have been restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, in association with the Cineteca di Bologna and the Film Heritage Foundation. “Aravindan’s Kummatty (a Malayalam children’s film made in 1979), restored, will have its world premiere at the IFFK,” Bina Paul says.
Kummatti poster / iffk.in
So will Touki Bouki, a 1973 Senegalese drama film, The Red Shoes from the UK (1948), Sayat Nova, an Armenian film from 1969, Ugetsu, a 1953 Japanese film, and Taipei Story (1985) from Taiwan.
Retrospectives for film personalities that passed away – including Malayalam’s own thespian Nedumudi Venu – have been included. ‘Framing Conflict’ is another section that features films from Afghanistan, Kurdistan and Myanmar. Sahraa Karimi, the first female president of the Afghan Film Organisation, had a traumatic escape from Afghanistan after the Taliban took over the country. She told Bina Paul that to forget the trauma, she was writing and making a film out of her experience. Her film Hava Maryam on three pregnant Afghan women is also part of the fest.
There is a lot more to look forward to, including a talk by noted Tamil filmmaker Pa Ranjith. A section of films will also celebrate the works of Miguel Gomes, a Portuguese director, whose satirical Arabian Nights films are part of the fest.
‘Kaleidoscope’ is another category, in which Avijatrik – a 2020 sequel to the iconic Apu trilogy by Satyajit Ray – directed by Subhrajit Mitra will be screened. Aparna Sen's The Rapist, a curiously titled Odia film called Adieu Godard by Amartya Bhattacharyya and Rahul Riji Nair’s The False Eye are also part of the Kaleidoscope.
Echoing Jeo’s sentiments, Rahul too writes about his film making it into a festival that he grew up loving. “Years ago, IFFK opened my doors to a brand of cinema that I never knew existed. My journey from a reluctant festival delegate to a devout learner at the IFFK is full of priceless memories. When I made my first feature film, my only dream was to get it screened at the IFFK. But it didn’t happen. Even when I got the opportunity to travel and showcase my films in some of the prestigious film festivals across the globe, the dream of having a film at the IFFK kept eluding me. But then dreams do come true!” he writes.
The IFFK ends on March 25.