the good n the bad!

...sitting here on the kbc sets waiting for the man to arrive...i can post thanks to wifi (now just how cool is that!)...first, the good:
the cc session at the vikalp-nova festival was a big hit! so well-attended, it suprised us...though in retrospect, i wish we were better prepared. this was the first time i got involved in the organising of a cc event. n was being kinda tentative n reticient...almost like wanting to see how "they" did things. there was the usual problem of not enough people volunteering or taking responsibility that plagues initiatives like these...i got involved a lil late in life n got hooked...i've always felt we (filmmakers, technicians) don't talk enough about our own work. it is something that propels me to do the erratic monthly screenings at home...

the bar at seijo in bandra, made for a strange venue for a discussion on documentary film making. but thanks to sunil's chinese lanterns et al, transformed it into a nice cozy initimate space. the scope of the afternoons' discussions was never clearly spelt out at the outset - not by murali, not by sanjeev either...n we didn't preface enough the clips we chose to show nor discuss them later. i chickened out last minute leaving muks to it all - cueing n introducing. our two guest presenters - rahul n ramani spoke of crises in indian docu filmmaking. whyever didn't they tell us the previous evening...maybe we'd have been able to tie up the entire session a lot better n be a lot more focussed. n since the belgian filmmakers were around we had to include them too. i felt all this took away from opening out the discussion to the audience....

nevertheless, it felt good...good to be talking, sharing...good not to have the imposing anand rakesh duo around...good to talk beyond censorship n political film...i personally was happy with the cross-section of films we presented tho missed showing a clip from 'zulmat' n 'kamlabai'...and most thrilled to hear that people enjoyed the session afterall!

over a drink back home with muks n sudheer, i vowed to be more involved next time n take responsibility...