Jabbar for separate DD channel for art films, culture

Panaji, Nov 30 (UNI) Veteran filmmaker Jabbar Patel today made a forceful plea for Doordashan having a separate channel for art films and Indian culture.

He lambasted the government for forcing the Prasar Bharati to compete with private channels like Star and Sony for becoming financially self-sufficient.

"Once Doordarshan and the All India Radio are forced to woo advertisers, then how can they have a place for artistes like Ravi Shankar and Shiv Sharma," he said.

Today, the coverage these artistes get on TV channels is just a 30 second video clip of their concerts.

"Is that enough for our young generation to know about them?" he asked.

Mr Patel's remarks came while interacting with the media along with other directors of the films produced by the Films Division of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and screened at the International Film Festival of India here.

He said he once discussed the matter for having a channel exclusively devoted to art and culture films with the then Minister for Information and Broadcasting Arun Jaitley, but was told that the cost for starting such a channel was prohibitive.

Mr Patel said he did not buy this argument when the government could spend crores on so many different things, then why not on such an important task for preserving the country's art and culture.

Replying to a question, he said the Censor Board had been interfering in their films produced but the Films Division had given them maximum freedom in their work.

Mr Patel's "Hans Akela", a film on Kumar Gandharva, was screened today.

He said the Films Division had a wonderful catalogue of rare films which no other agency has, and the filmmakers and researchers should utilise this treasure house.

Mr Arun Gongade, U B Mathur, Vinay Vairale and Ravi Kumar, directors of "Kati Patang", "Hrishikesh Mukherjee", "BR--Har Daur Mein Naya Daur and "Sthapati" , the other Films Division productions screened at IFFI, also spoke about their works.

UNI NAZ NK PM1443