Going 'Glocal’ With M
Indian Cinema
eenakshi Shedde dons many hats- film critic, curator to festivals worldwide, journalist and writer on social issues. But what stands out is her deep, passionate understanding of cinema. It is what probably keeps her verve intact, despite a day of watching movies back-to-back as the NETPAC jury member of IFFK 2015, as she speaks on how there is a need to promote good films. “When Satyajit Ray passed away, thousands came to pay their respects. But when his last film Agantuk was screened, theatres ran half empty. India is a graveyard of good cinema,” she says. Presence of film societies and festivals is critical in India, where Independent cinema struggles to find a space. “Film screenings at festivals should be followed by such an interaction where it could be explained why the film was good,” she says. “What is needed is educating people about good cinema,” she says. The effort should be to bring about a scene in the country when good films among both commercial and Independent cinema should run in theatres. Meenakshi contributes towards this in many ways. Her writings, for one. Then, as consultant on Indian films to festivals abroad, she tries to make the voice of Indian cinema in global forums. Also, as a resource person at workshops and institutes, she works with cineastes to help them hone skills to appreciate good cinema.
But in India, there is need for a more prominent space for such films, she says. “Whenever we talk of world cinema, it is either Iranian or French, or Italian. I have never heard anyone talk of Indian films in this context,” she says. As a mentor at the young critics’ lab at Mumbai International Film Festival, she urged the participants to watch a range of Indian films to get across to them the idea of fine content. That the new creed of film-makers are trying to tell stories differently offers a lot of hope, she says. There are directors like Anurag Kashyap and Neeraj Ghaywan who understand the need to make films with local flavour yet bearing a global appeal. This trend is slowly paying off. Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox, the story of an epistolary relationship set in Mumbai between a crusty widower and a neglected housewife, was an international box office hit. Masaan, setin downtown Varanasi, won applause in a premier festival like Cannes and within two months of it got metro releases in India. “So glocal is the word,” she says. With her repertoire of information on the many layers of Indian cinema, a universal vision to match, and her efforts to get across good Indian cinema to foreign audience, Meenakshi her self fits into the ‘glocal’ milieu well. Manasvi |