Artistes protest shabby treatment towards regional cinema

Panaji, Nov 27 (UNI) The fifth day of the ongoing International Film Festival of India (IFFI) was marked by loud protests from people invloved with regional cinema for one mistake or the other.

The theme song of the festival drew protests from the regional cinema as it did not contain any clippings other than the Hindi Cinema, in the inaugural session of the festival on November 23 night.

Many artsites representing regional cinema citicised the organisers for allegedly publishing a photo of another actor, who was alive, in the festival brochure instead of the late Dr Rajkumar in the Homage section.

Interestingly, the festival brochure committed another blunder by treating the the film premiered this evening as Konkani instead of Marathi.

This time, the veteran and highly respected Marathi director-actor-producer Ramesh Dev took the lead on the stage to protest against the "callous attitude" of the organisers towards regional cinema.

'' We do not need a microphone to tell you what is happening and how the regional cinema has been treated throughout,'' he shouted inside the Dinanath Mangeshkar auditorium of the Kala Academy, the main venue of the festival.

The organisers messed it up again when Mr Dev's Marathi film ''Maye Bap'' (Glass House) was premiered but the announcer failed to introduce the film cast to the audience as had been the tradition.

Later, with none coming out to handover the microphone, he took the lead in inviting the film cast to the stage. All including the well-known and award winning filmmaker, script writer and lyriist rushed on to the stage in anger and protested the shabby treatment in Marathi.

The film, which weaves around a housewife Sudha who loses her mental balance following the shock she receives after the death of her only son in a train bomb blast in Mumbai, was well received by the audience.

UNI BM SAM HT2332