Osians Cine Fan Festival

10th EDITION OF OSIAN’S CINE FAN FESTIVAL

FESTIVAL OF ASIAN AND ARAB CINEMA

First it was Ms.Aruna Vasudev of “Cine Maya” and now it’s the formidable Neville Tuli, the ebullient, bubbling CEO cum Managing Director of OSIAN’S

CONNOISSEURS OF ART PRIVATE LTD. This India’s pioneering arts institution was established by Tuli in 2000. He was nurturing a vision of building a new holistic infrastructure for the Indian arts, culture and it’s education, which should also be financially self sufficient and built by a unique creative process. After forming this corporate, he started crystallizing his vision with action. Associating his company with the creative efforts of Aruna Vasudev, a senior connoisseur of arts and films who had pioneered the festival of path breaking films made in Asian countries in 1999 known as “Asian Cine Fan Film Festival”, Tuli started building his vision breaking down hierarchies of the polpular and the highbrow to reinvent a thoughtful and creative film culture of our times, the one and only so far ventured into a reality in India. To start with, Vasudev and Tuli renamed the “Asian” as “Osian’s Cine Fan Film Festival”. While the tenth edition of this grand spectacle will take place in full fledged form at Siri Fort Auditorium complex New Delhi between 10-20 July 08, a mini spectacle of full two day event was held at the sprawling NCPA complex in Mumbai on 13th and 14th June.

HIGH LIGHTS OF Tenth Osian’s Cine Fan Film Festival Mumbai

The two day programme of Osian’s IBM2 (Infrastructure Building for Minds and Markets) initiative was divided into into Four specific segments Consisting of

1. A Symposium on the topics “Ban the Book / Flaunt the Film” and “Can / Should the Creative Individual be Institutionalized? were the topics of brain storming discussions, as a part of Osian’s platform to argue, agree, learn, challenge and ignite one’s imagination. In this, Art film maker glitratti, experienced journalists, social and legal activists had participated.
   (A report of the second topic is given separately as an “Exploration” by this writer)
2. Screening of a package of seven selected films of Asian and Arab countries including the Premier of Manishankar’s Hindi film “Mukhbir”.
3. Three Exhibitions culled from the Osian’s huge Arts and Film Archive Collection were show cased for the first time in India with a special focus on the relationship between writing and cinema. First was an exploration in the form of Antiquarian “The Shakespeare Gallery Engravings” from the Boydell Gallery, London. Second was on the Original Artworks for Vintage Hindi novel covers from 1950 to 70. The third and most spectacular exhibition was from the reel life glimpses of legendary actor and original Rebel star Shammi Kapoor, in the form of film posters, Vintage still photographs, and rare show/lobby cards of his range of acting culled from his films or various rare sources. The unique, exhaustive and informative exhibition was well described by Shammi Kapoor himself in reply to his felicitation as a part of grand finale “This is perhaps the most eloquent pictorial description of my entire film career, some of which I, myself have come to know for the first time”
4. The most exciting, entertaining and spectacular part was the grand finale function, where a glowing tribute was paid to one of the most loved actors of Hindi cinema, Shammi Kapoor by felicitations from the reknowned film makers of Indian cinema and living stalwarts who contributed in shaping his glorious film career. Actor Aamir Khan, also a fan of Shammi Kapoor was the Chief Guest.

However, the most eagerly awaited gift to the city of Mumbai was also “Unveiled” Neville Tuli as the climax of grand finale, the scale model of “The Osianama” with the leading lights of the cultural world. The OSIANAMA is the Osian’s flagship cultural complex which is being built by his company at a massive cost at the site of Mumbai’s erstwhile cinema theatre Minerva at Lamington Road. This will be ready by mid 2009.

A detailed report of this Grand finale function is given in Part II of this article along with a short resume of good / memorable films screened.

(Part I Over) (Click here to read Part - II)