'Holy Smoke' does not trivialise Indian spirituality: Director

Panaji, Nov 25: Piano fame Academy Award winning director Jane campion says she has not trivialised the Indian spirituality in her Kate Winslet starrer Holy Smoke, a fair part of which has been shot in the country.

''By showing the fascination of the main character Ruth(Winslet) for the so-called spiritual baba in the film, I have tried to show the curiosity of a young mind in search of some meaning in her life,'' she said.

She was answering questions at the 'Master Classes' session after the screening of the film at the International Film Festival of India(IFFI) here.

Master Classes are now regular features of the festival where acclaimed directors talk about their work.

Ms Campion said her effort in the film has been to underline that there was nothing more sacred than being compassionate and kind.

Dismissing suggestions that she has failed to understand the Indian experience, Ms campion said she has tried to show the superficial reactions of her young character, suggesting to the reader that she may be wiser at the end.

The New Zealand born director advised young filmmakers to shed fear, which she said has a great crippling effect.

She said that she could make Holy Smoke because when she was working at it she did not realise the conytroversial nature of the subject. ''Now when in retrospect, I see the film, and relise the complexity of the subject, I feel that had the realisation come in the beginning of the film, it would have come into being at all.

The celebrated director said she believed in establishing a relationship of deep trust and confidence in her actors. Actors should not be put in a frame, they should be given full opportunity to bring out the best in them, and that's where a director's success lies. She said when she started making films, she had no confidence to make any sort of films, but it all gets going when you get down to work.

Earlier, Ms campion told reporters that she talks with a woman's perspective in her films.

''Mostly it is the men's perspective that dominates films, but I wish more films were made with a woman's perspective. The world would be a much better place if it had that,'' she said.

Campion's first short film, Peel (1982) won her the Palme D'Or at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival.

She won recognition with An Angel at my Table (1990), a dramatised autobiography of the poet Janet Frame. International recognition followed with another Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1993 for The Piano, which won the best director award from the Australian Film Institute and an Oscar for best screenplay in 1994. She was the second woman ever to be nominated best director at the 66th Academy Awards.

Other works include The Portrait of a Lady (1996), based on the Henry James novel, featuring Nicole Kidman, John Malkovich, Barbara Hershey and Martin Donovan.

UNI