Filmmaker Adoor seeks removal of National Film Awards jury chairperson

- Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle

                 Filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan has in a searing criticism of the national film awards selection under the new dispensation called for a probe against the jury chairman (Rajendra Singh Babu), who presided over the selection of the Indian Panorama at IFFI 2016. In a nine-point letter to Information and Broadcasting Secretary Ajay Mittal, Mr Gopalakrishnan lamented the plight of “the cinema movement of purpose and integrity”.

He was also vehemently critical of the Ramesh Sippy-led jury that selected the national awards for 2015, heavily biased in favour of commercial cinema. Mr Gopalakrishnan withheld names of the two chief jurors in the letter but did not conceal his outrage since “never before have such jokers been appointed as jury chairmen”.

Reflecting sentiments of the film fraternity pursuing “purposeful cinema”, Mr Gopalakrishnan said that soon there would be an occasion to choose members as well as a chairman to the National film awards jury. “We insist that the jury should be headed by a filmmaker of eminence, familiar with modern trends in cinema and enjoys a national stature and he and other members on the jury would instill a feeling of fairness in the minds of the professionals involved”, said Mr Gopalakrishnan.

'The Female Nude' gets National Award

-NDFS Desk

The 56th National Film Awards have been announced and the documentary The Female Nude that we featured on this site in August 2009 itself has been declared the Best Non Feature Film on Social Issues. It is heartening and redeeming. It has been produced by PSBT and direced by the renowned painter Hem Jyotika and the celebrated poet of our times Devi Prasad Mishra. The film was shortlisted in the South Asia Livelihood Documentary Film Festival 2009. The film has been screened at the annual Open Frame International Film Festival, at the INPUT Film Festival, Kolkata, at the Kalam Film Festival, Lucknow, to great critical acclaim. And now the national award for the film – the journey does not seem to sag.
The film is about a model, who sits up for painters and sculptors. She lives in the slum of a metro where she lives with her four step sons, and her own daughter. She must have posed for so many artists but till date she has not been invited to any of the exhibitions. She feels alienated- she is a social margin in the power structure of art. And her wages are horribly low. At one point in the film she says - इस शहर में खोने का मजा तभी है जब कोई ढूंढने वाला हो, लेकिन मोको ढूंढने वाला कोई नहीं है । Great grumbling of deep pathos, and great capturing.
The film is also about attitudes – she is an easy target of male sexual fantasies. She has been abandoned by her husband; now she has to protect herself from the stalkers in her struggle to earn her livelihood. But not all has been lost - she has been immortalized in the paintings and sculptures, and, of course, in the documentary that has been made on her life.
It is the story of the struggle of a woman for livelihood, dignity and self respect. It is the story of a woman’s alienation in the cityscape; it is also the story of redemption and hope.