Signs!

"There are more things in heaven and earth ,Horatio, than are thought of in your philosophy"
These words of the great bard Shakespeare is what crossed my mind when I think about "Signs" - the festival of Documentary and Short Fiction which was held at Trivandrum from 12th to 19 th January. In this one week what i saw and observed are many things.

I saw the transformation of simple everyday minor incidents into interesting creations. I saw the possibilities that a good script and a well packed screenplay can hold. I saw the million things that the camera can capture. Then again i saw how a beautiful theme was transformed into an ugly beast. I saw many thing that made me think if someone can make this i can do a better job. But when i saw yet another work i plunged into doubts as to whether I am capable of transforming words into images. The one thing that I was sure about is that the work that goes into this is immense. And after all these thoughts i understood why Hamlet echoed those words in me.

I saw around 60 works. But there were a few that really moved me. On top of the list is the very poignant portraits of women cutting across the many nuances that make a woman in the 21 st century. Saiju Sasikumar's "Sameera", M.S. Ambarien R. Alqada's "Four Women and a room" and Anjali Menon's "Waiting Women" will remain as a part of me. Paying tribute was taken to a new level by Jaydio Mukharjee and Aloke Banerjee's "Pather Panchali: A Living Resonance." If Ray showed us the world of Apu with subtlety and simplicity, this documentary showed us Pather Panchali and the paths that lead to this great work.

Sidelining "Slumdog Millionaire" by a very huge margin came Sanjeev Sivan's "Dharavi". A true portrayal of the largest slum in Asia, this documentary put across the fact that this city within a city is not only the backbone of Indian economy but also of the world. this is the story of the slum dogs who work so that the millionaires around the world can exist.

Questioning the notion of identity and the role that society plays in its construction came Dr B. Manjula "XXWHY" . "The Salt Stories" by Lalit Vachani follows the path took by Gandhiji during his Dandi March. Much more than the journey, it is a satiric and frighteningly realistic picture of the irony that is an Indian. From the students of FTII comes "An Untitled Film" about the Institute in Pune. It is at once objective and subjective. "Three of Us" of Umesh Kulkarni which Bagged a prize at the festival is a simple documentation of a family of three who lives on despite the miseries of life, while we live on complaining about our happy lives.

Arun Sukumar's "When this man dies" was a very good adaptation. "A Writer's Affair" coming from Vishnu Shyamaprasad made me see the possibilities of a well planned script and editing in even capturing the many arenas of imagination.

Emmanuel Qundo Palo's "Stations" is a subtle testimony to the complex lifestyle of modern man highlighting the politics in a relationship and the compromises to make it in life. The transformation of a bottle thrown into the sea to a saga of many lives was shown in "Lost and Found". Even our everyday cup of coffee became a film through Prahlad's "Kapi", however a better screenplay would have been wonderful.

there are many that do stay in me. i learnt something or the other from each of the work i saw. the apprehensions that is there when i know I have to make a documentary is still there. But in the many things that I am yet to see, i hope , lies a subject for the documentary i have to make. The "Signs" was a sign towards this endeavour.