Darlings of the festival circuit: Marathi films
Agroup of 11 children and seven teens comprised the jury that awarded Killa with a Crystal Bear for best film in the Generation Kplus category at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. The Marathi film by debutant director Avinash Arun deals with migration and how it affects children, through the story of a boy’s struggle adjusting in a small town after moving to the countryside from the big city. Partly autobiographical, based on his own experience of moving from place to place due his father’s job, the film’s protagonist is an 11-year-old Chinu who relocates with his mother following his father’s death. The move is to help them recover from their loss but being excluded from playgroups only makes him lonelier.
The Marathi film is not only Arun’s first feature film as director but also the first Indian film to win this award. That he is a cinematographer trained at FTII and his short film Allah Is Great won the National award in 2012, besides going for the Student Oscars as India’s official entry could prepare one for the citation Killa received for its selection by the Children’s Jury: “This film convinced us in all respects: with his good camera work and the great actors, but also because of its incredibly beautiful nature images, which blend perfectly with the music. This film made us all want to discover India. What the director wasn’t expecting was the seven-minute applause the film got. In addition, it received a Special Mention by an international jury for outstanding achievements.
But Killa is not the first Marathi film that has been getting wide recognition in recent times. Regional cinema is often overshadowed by its flashier cousin Bollywood and screen space muscled by their astronomical budgets. But films like Nagraj Manjule’s Fandry are ushering in a new breed of Marathi filmmakers that are beginning to regain lost ground. While Killa is aiming for a theatrical release by this summer, Fandry released with Eng-
What these films are armed with are real stories that cut across the boundaries of language and region and touch upon universal experiences.
lish subtitles on 14 February in Maharashtra and will travel outside the state by the end of the month. The move will help the film cash in on the interest it has generated due to its popularity at film festival circuits.
What these films are armed with are real stories that cut across the boundaries of language and region and touch upon universal experiences. Fandry combines many such experiences — adolescence, caste discrimination and young love. It is a tale of a young Dalit boy Jabya who is the son of a poor illiterate pig catcher, in love with Shalu, a girl from a rich upper caste family, and his hopes pinned on catching a black sparrow that he believes will get him his heart’s desire.
It picked up the Grand Jury prize at Mumbai International Film Festival last year, toured BFI London, Abu Dhabi and Goteborg film festivals and picked up more awards at the Pune International film festival as well as the best Indian film of 2013, a film critics award at the Bengaluru International Film Festival.
Sale of satellite rights, like in the case of Zee TV buying Fandry, helps monetise these films and take them to a larger audience. But film festivals are doing for regional language films what they have been doing for indie films for a while; taking them beyond regional boundaries to a national and international audience. It marks a new beginning, and though commercial Indian cinema may lead in the numbers department, it would do well to take heed and up their game.