5th Jagran Film Festival Day 5: The show goes on

Hansal Mehta

With the weekend kicking off, it was perhaps not surprising to see scores of people throng the venues to watch films and listen in on panel discussions at the ongoing Jagran Film Festival. In fact, day five of the fest saw the highest footfall so far.

Hansal Mehta

A slew of films were screened at both PVR Andheri and Cinemax Versova. World masterpieces served to enlighten and entertain both movie buffs and filmmakers alike. The day started off with an interesting discussion on investing in films.

Producer Ashish Bhatnagar, filmmaker Tom Waller and Thai actor Vithaya Pansringarm at the fifth Jagran Film Festival at PVR, Andheri Pics/Nimesh Dave

The panel comprised of producer-director Tom Waller; producer-director Dr Mrunalini Patil; Ashish Bhatnagar, CEO of Idream Motion Pictures; and Thai actor Vithaya Pansringarm. This quartet brought in their varied views about how money plays a key role in cinema. The panelists drove home the point that for good or for bad, it's almost impossible to divorce filmmaking from commerce.

Producer-director Ioakim Mylonas with film critic Philip Cheah on day five of the fifth edition of Jagran Film Festival at Cinemax, Andheri on Friday

As far as screenings are concerned, there were three Asian premieres in a row starting with Giovanni Veronisi's A Woman As a Friend followed by the Czech comedy, Revival, and then the Dutch film, Farewell to the Moon. All the three premieres registered healthy footfall and it was Revival that aroused maximum curiosity, especially among the younger audiences.

Audiences watching Shahid at the fifth Jagran Film Festival at Cinemax, Andheri

Later on, a documentary titled Katiyabaaz was screened. It tells the evocative story about how electricity is stolen and no prizes for guessing that it was very well-received. But it was the film, Shahid, that saw a huge crowd turn up. Not only did it have a packed theatre, but the Q&A session with director Hansal Mehta too was a memorable one.

Among the classics, a retrospective on Bimal Roy's films continued to draw the old-timers as well as film students. Interestingly, it is not just the full length feature films that had audiences glued to their seats. Short films showcased as part of the Jagran Shorts section, including Shivangi Jain's The Thief' along with Niladri Chatterjee's Grrr… (The Roar),

Taiwanese director Chiang Chung-Chieh's Panacea and Vijayeta Kumar's Blouse kept the audiences entertained.

In the international films section, many works from Greece and France were shown. The French-Arabic feature, Outside the Law, was in a league of its own as it pulled in great crowds in the 9pm slot.