BY: Y. Bala Murali krishna

Panaji, Nov 24 (UNI) Glamour, not the content and context, makes a great difference for the media, particularly the electronic media, for covering an event in the ongoing International Film festival of India(IFFI).

This was glaringly evident when the national and local channels withdrew microphones from the podium and wound up their video camera stands when they realised noted film actress Manisha Koirala would not turn up for a media briefing on "Master Classes" today at the Black Box in the Kala Academy, the main venue of the festival.

Instead, noted Indian born French Film maker and curator of the programme Vijay Singh, flanked by veteran french Film Makers - Jan Chapman and Jane Campion-both women - interacted with the thin audience in the auditorium which otherwise used to be crowded and cluttered with mediapersons for bytes and pics of filmstars.

The glamour craze was markedly noticed when yesterday heart throb and Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra launched the "festival Theme Song CD" in the presence of chief minister Pratapsingh Rane.

Dozens of the microphones of different channels were shifted from place to place when she moved from one point to the other before addressing the media. Some of the mediapersons even held their microphones in their hands with no place found on the podium from where she spoke.

But, alas, the media crowd is thinner today and the organisers of the media interaction had not even bothered to display the names of the French film makers till it was pointed out.

The interaction was quite interesting as the French lady producers spoke of the values of the Indian Cinema and its good qualities and the producers they liked the most.For them, Indian or French does not make any difference as far as cinema is concerned.

It is afterall, different perspectives of life one experiences in real life, unmindful of the linguistic differences.

Surprisingly, even some of the local videographers had left the auditorium in a huff when the glamour queen Koirala did not turn up on the stage and her nameplate withdrawn at the eleventh hour before the commencement of the media briefing by Vijay Singh.

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