[Reader-list] the bring your own film festival, puri

[Anand Vivek Taneja]

an edited version of this write-up appeared in tehelka dated saturday, March
6.
the film festival was on between the 20th and 24th of february.
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The Bring Your Own Film Festival, Puri.
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>  Before you came here, had you thought of a place like this?
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> Or more aptly, since it's a film festival we're talking about  -
> Unfortunately, no one can be told what BHADAAS DHO is, you have to be
there for yourself!
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> Apologies to the Wachowski brothers,  but if you're as stumped at this
stage as Neo was when Morpheus threw him that line, that's only natural. For
like the laws of the physical world go for a toss inside the Matrix, the
laws of virtually everything about the politics and economy and well, just
the plain old  fun of watching films, were completely redefined, forever, in
just the first three days of the Bring Your Own Film Festival, Puri. For
some of us, the world has changed forever. Perhaps for the first time, we're
confronted with such Einsteinian conundrums as space-time and relativity.
The film festival has just extended itself by a day and a half, and set
itself to go on well into Wednesday morning. and still nobody wants to
leave. It's as if a large sandy enclosure by the sea, in the hippie part of
Puri, has fallen off the space time continuum into another, strangely better
universe.
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> And all this, less than  a month after the travesty, the fiasco, the
clumsy attempted murder of democracy that was MIFF.
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> And all of this, at a small place called the Pink House, and a large
enclosure with two large screening tents, sand sloping down to the beach,
with the silence between films punctuated by the roar of the ocean. Like all
good ideas should, this started with friends talking over beer.
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> And all it needed was the idea. A delightfully simple idea, which all
film-makers should beat themselves around the head for not having had
earlier. Or at least, not having implemented. An email started circulating
sometime in January (which is how I got to know about the film festival)
that we're planning to organize this festival in which everybody brings
their own films, and everybody screens their own films. That's about it, no
selection criteria, no entry fee, no nothing. Just land up, bring your film,
screen it, and bum around in Puri, by the beach, which is CHEAP!
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> Like Neo following the white rabbit, all I, and many others, had to go by
was a mysterious message that flashed on our computers, and we signed up for
what was to turn out to be a most magical journey down the rabbit hole. But
there were cynics. I forwarded the mail to an MBA friend of mine, who wrote
back, 'too good to be practically feasible' or something of the sort. Which
tells you a lot about MBAs, because the film festival HAPPENED. Did it ever.
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> There has been virtually no sponsorship. (Corporates, are after all,
advised by MBAs). But that hasn't stopped anything from happening. People
turned up in droves, tourists, students from Puri and from Sambalpur, Ad
film-makers, wildlife filmmakers, old documentary hands, young documentary
hands, film students, lawyers, actors, a man with a big didgeridoo and a
very big chillum, lawyers turned actors, soap opera stars on a break, drama
therapists, and dogs. Lots of dogs. When they said it was an open festival,
they meant it was an open festival. Film students brought their diploma
films, from Delhi, Calcutta, Bombay, Cuttack. An eight year old (?) kid from
Bangalore brought a three minute film he'd shot. A TV producer from Scotland
read the email, and came all the way to Puri to make a film about the film
festival.  An Odissi dancer from Italy came to perform in one of the longer
breaks from films.  Someone interpreted 'Bring Your Own Film Festival' a bit
differently, and brought their own film festival - twenty three DVDs of
classics he wanted to share, Cinema Paradiso, Eight and a Half,
Koanisqatsi.. Someone got excited by the idea, and designed a logo, for
free. Someone else designed a poster, for free. And the impossible was well
on its way to becoming the best thing that has happened to the east coast of
India for some time now.
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> Imagine coming into a film festival where there is no jury, and no obscure
selection procedure. You just turn up, like we did, at eleven o' clock at
night, and register. Then you pick a slot for the screening according to
your convenience, the only limitation being someone else having picked the
slot earlier. But then you can't be more democratic than a first come first
serve basis. Which meant that experimental, five minute fiction by a first
time film-maker could, and did, precede a more established filmmaker's
documentary. Hindi, Bangla, Oriya, English( and just about everything else,
including Tamil and Arabic).
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> For me, personally, the best thing was that I saw films that I will never
get to see at a big organized festival that happens in Delhi like the
CINEFAN. Or at Habitat and IIC. Especially the shorter films, which pack so
much into ten minutes or less, and yet don't fit into screening schedules,
which demand more 'meat'. Irreverent, bawdy fiction; thought provoking
experimentation; soul-searching fiction. It was all unfolding in an
embarrassment of riches, with the film-makers around to congratulate and to
converse with. Of course, there was lots of long-winded, badly made crap
too. But what was important was that the film-makers of those were around
too. So you could tell them. Perhaps the best thing about the festival was
that though everyone was there because of films, there was a healthily
irreverent attitude to film amd film-making, which (mostly) kept the egos
associated with film-makers pretty deflated.
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> So watching films came way down on the list after sleeping late and having
a good hearty brunch. No films were screened before two thirty in the
afternoon. Before which you could eat, saunter down to the beach, bathe in
the sea, sunbathe, drink beer, and only reach the film festival after
getting nicely buzzed, and still not miss the first films of the day. The
films then went on till two thirty in the morning, but in the dinner break,
a sensible and flexible ten pm to midnight, in which you could also down a
few double Bacardis and cokes for an extremely sensible and highly
improbable thirty rupees a drink. Twenty without the coke. Ten for a single
shot.
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> If there be paradise on earth, it is in Puri, Orissa, and God is a
sardarji called Gurpal Singh. Bhadaas DHO!
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> Apart from the tents, there were open air film screenings at night of 16
and 35 mm prints. There were impromptu music sessions, where Bangla rock met
the didgeridoo at two in the morning, and blended with the sound of the sea.
Theres a night of telling jokes on the cards, on the last night of the
festival, if ever there is a last night..(it seems highly improbable right
now.)
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> But of course, words can do no justice to what happened and is happening
at Puri, and what it means for the future of films and film-making. You
had/have to be there to know.. But even that wouldn't have helped you with
what you're probably wondering about right now. Whatever on earth does
BHADAAS DHO mean?
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> We're still trying to figure out. All interpretations are welcome. Just
come with them to Puri and we'll screen them for you.
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