{"id":231,"date":"2004-02-08T09:20:46","date_gmt":"2004-02-08T13:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/2004\/02\/08\/alternative-film-festival-in-bombay-"},"modified":"2004-02-08T09:20:46","modified_gmt":"2004-02-08T13:20:46","slug":"alternative-film-festival-in-bombay-offers-space-for-political-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/2004\/02\/08\/alternative-film-festival-in-bombay-offers-space-for-political-film\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternative Film Festival in Bombay Offers Space for Political Films"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a112'><\/a><\/p>\n<p><P><FONT face=\"Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\">Indian film-makers have set up an <A href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/south_asia\/3466691.stm\">alternative film festival<\/A>, Vikalp: Films for Freedom, after the government run Mumbai International Film Festival (Miff) refused to air political documentaries.&nbsp; According to film-makers, 44 films were rejected because of their political content<\/FONT><FONT face=\"Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\">:<\/FONT><\/P><br \/>\n<BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<P><FONT face=\"Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\"><EM>&#8220;When we went through the list of films [at the government festival], we realised that all Indian films that had anything to do with politics &#8211; the Gujarat riots, environmental issues questioning the government and sexuality &#8211; had been left out,&#8221; he [film-maker Pankaj Rishi Kumar] told BBC News Online.<\/EM><\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<P><FONT face=\"Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\">13 film-makers also withdrew their films from MIFF in protest.&nbsp; Although organizers of MIFF deny censorship, a <A href=\"http:\/\/cities.expressindia.com\/fullstory.php?newsid=75298\">media briefing by the selection committee<\/A> gave hints of the selection process<\/FONT><FONT face=\"Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\">:<\/FONT><\/P><br \/>\n<BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<P><FONT face=\"Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\"><EM>Selection committee member Vikram Singh admitted they had viewed films and rated them. &#x2018;&#x2018;However, we were not informed that there would be another selection. Nor were we told about the total number of films selected and screening hours,&#x2019;&#x2019; he said. <\/EM><\/FONT><\/P><br \/>\n<P><FONT face=\"Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\"><EM>&#x2018;&#x2018;We have been reduced to a mere recommending body,&#x2019;&#x2019; Singh added.<\/EM><\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<P><FONT face=\"Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\">One of the films rejected from MIFF is Rajesh Sharma&#x2019;s <EM>Final Solution<\/EM>, covered in our earlier post<\/FONT><FONT face=\"Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\"> <A href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/2004\/01\/18#a78\">on censorship of Gujarat-related films<\/A> and in an <A href=\"http:\/\/english.aljazeera.net\/NR\/exeres\/0CD9541D-9AF6-457F-ADAE-5657F0C3D75C.htm\">article in today&#x2019;s AlJazeera.net<\/A><\/FONT><FONT face=\"Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,Sans-Serif\" size=\"2\">.<\/FONT><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indian film-makers have set up an alternative film festival, Vikalp: Films for Freedom, after the government run Mumbai International Film Festival (Miff) refused to air political documentaries.&nbsp; According to film-makers, 44 films were rejected because of their political content: &#8220;When we went through the list of films [at the government festival], we realised that all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}