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SNIFF the whiff of student films
The festival put up by students had the unstinted support of filmmaker Ashoke Pandit. At the opening ceremony, the principal of the college, Dr Geeta Mohan described the festival as ���by the students, for the students and of the students.���
 
Tue, Mar 04, 2008 12:57:45 IST
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SNIFF, A students’ festival organised by Usha Pravin Gandhi College of Management, opened at Bhaidas Hall, Juhu on March 3. With MAMI (Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image) closely following on March 6. Is it a precursor to student film festivals?
 
The writer, who reached the venue early, witnessed the dry runs and the ensuing goof-ups that the festival director was rectifying to ensure a fault-free opening ceremony. It was really heartening to see 100 odd students working diligently towards making the festival a success.
 
The name Sixteen: Nine comes from the aspect ratio of the films. The organisers claim it to be the first film festival organised by students in Mumbai (if we discount festivals by mass-communication colleges, like Xavier), though there have been such festivals in Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad.
 
The festival put up by students had the unstinted support of filmmaker Ashoke Pandit. At the opening ceremony, the principal of the college, Dr Geeta Mohan described the festival as “by the students, for the students and of the students.”
 
In a rare gesture, Pandit took off his shoes while lighting up the inaugural lamp. However, what the writer couldn’t decipher was what was Madhur Bhandarkar doing at the opening ceremony. A students’ film festival could have easily got a polished and a more deserving personality.
 
The two-day long festival is put up at three venues: Bhaidas Hall, Santokba Sanskar Sadan and Jashoda Rang Mandir. The signature song ‘sixteen: nine’ deserves special mention, as it is composed with a peppy tune.
 
Day one, apart from the opening ceremony, had the screening of the opening film ‘Coma’ directed by Alok Sutaar. The non-fiction category and the cell phone category films also opened.
 
‘Coma’ was about Hitler and juxtaposed with present day context, though the subject matter was very good, the execution left a lot to be desired. The only thing that stood out in the film was its background music that sustained the viewers’ interest.
 
No wonder then, the making of 16:9, a short capsule giving the lowdown of the students at work to put the festival together, was much better received and had a few in the audience bursting into laughter with its fluid camera-work and in your face attitude.
 
Day two seems to be a more exciting mix, with the films seemingly having myriad moods. The scheduling consists of award winning ad-films, ad films, fictional films and animation films. The evening will see the closing ceremony and distribution of awards by none other than Aamir Khan.
 
There will also be live performances, most notably by Sukhwinder Singh and upcoming Indian expatriate singer Ishq Bector.
 
To complete the look of the festival there are workshops by Sudhir Mishra, Raman Kumar, Ishan Raina, Tarun Agarwal, BP Singh and Kamal Nahte on various technicalities of filmmaking.
 
The start has been good, but what matters most is the follow-up. There have been festivals in Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad started with much frenzy, but they just couldn’t move beyond the first edition.
 
At SNIFF too, there were mass walkouts during the screenings. The reason for this that the writer analysed was, lack of quality content.
 
World-over, student festivals are intelligently packaged with films by the professionals so that the interest of the viewer is alive, and they are still called student film festivals. Hope SNIFF organisers will look into this while putting together second edition of SNIFF.
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Dear Editor.I am shocked to read Amit Aggarwals staement in the above article where he mentions that the festival could have invited much more polished person in place of Madhur Bhandarkar to open the festival.I think Amit Aggarwal should do some research and some study to know about Madhur Bhandarkar. And if he dosent know who Madhur Bhandarkar is then he should be sacked from your organisation as he dosent deserve to be reporting film events. He should know how to respect great filmakers of our country.
 
 
| 24 March 2008
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