‘Adam Resurrected’ opens Galle Film Festival

The Galle Film Festival committee has confirmed that the Asian premiere of Paul Schrader’s new film ‘Adam Resurrected’ will take place on the first night of the four day gala. The film will be screened in Galle, October 25 at 7.30 p.m.

Schrader is renowned in Hollywood as a brilliant scriptwriter, whose most famous piece is Scorcese’s ‘Taxi Driver’. With its Schrader turned director and has since had a number of successes including ‘American Gigolo’ and ‘Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters’ for which he was nominated for the Palme d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival. ‘Adam Resurrected’ is set to receive high acclaim around the world. Schrader’s reputation is often coupled with the story of his upbringing in a harsh Calvinist household.

On having such a notorious director provide their opening event, Galle Film Festival co-founder Damita Nikapota says, “fill in please”.The gala event will take place in and around Galle on October 25 and 26 and November 1 and 2.

IFFI, Goa, 2008

K. S. Sivakumaran

The 39th International Film Festival of India begins in the capital Panaji or Panama Goa in north-western India on November 22 and ends on December 2 this year. This is the closest International Film Festivals I could afford to visit and I had been doing that almost every year since 1991 except for a few years when I was away from the country.

There are other international film festivals held in other mega capitals of India - for instance the Kerala and Kolkatta could be mentioned. But the IFFI draws many cineastes

from other parts of India and foreign countries. Until 2004, the Directorate of Film Festivals, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, New Delhi had been solely conducting this prestigious ‘Aesthetic Cinema Meet’ (from my point of view). After Goa has become the permanent venue, the DFF organises the IFFI in collaboration with the Government of Goa. Goa, as we know, is a former Portuguese protectorate and now one of the States in India.

The columns in Projector and the Artscope (Gleanings) carried my reports and reviews, which Daily News readers would have read. I could see only selected films out of more than 200 films at the Festival.

Although films from European countries, USA and elsewhere are shown under the category of Cinema of the world, only films from Asia, Africa and Latin America enter the competition. Films produced or directed by Indians abroad also find a place in the Festival. Beside this there is the Indian Panorama where the best films from all regions or states of India are shown.

The IFFI also have Retrospectives (both Foreign and Indian) Particular Country Focus, Tribute, Homage, Birth Centenaries, Master Class, Special Screening and the like.

One could meet world famous filmmakers, actors and actresses, film critics, film journalists, academics, people from the film societies, and have fun and mix with frolic abundance of gaiety and general mood of joy at these festivals.

Let’s wrap up with the notes:

If the serious film buffs are interested in good cinema then they should try to see at least some of the films I missed writing about. Please see below: ‘Olga’ (Argentina) ‘The Debt’ (Israel), ‘In the Name of God’ (Pakistan), ‘Svani’ (Georgia), ‘Me Myself’ (Thailand), ‘Unfinished Girl’ (China), ‘Cecille’ (Denmark), ‘Lights in the Dark’ (Finland), ‘99 Francs’ (France), ‘Changement d’ Adresse’ (France), ‘Strange Crime’ (France), ‘Goodbye Bafana’ (Multinational), ‘The Day Looms’ (Iran), ‘Someone to Run With’ (Israel), ‘Rush Hour’ (Italy), ‘Love My Life’ (Japan), ‘Dot.Com’ (Portugal), ‘Tsotsi’ (South Africa), ‘Waiting for Heaven’ (Turkey), ‘American East’ (USA) and many more, not excluding some fine Indian films.

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Maheel into the comet with Red

Sachitra Mahendra

The blackness created by the earth shadow gives way to reveal the earth, now slowly moving away from the camera. With appropriate key strokes in the music track, sun rises behind the earth, enhancing the blue phosphorescence glow of the earth and creating its own flares in the view.

So starts Maheel Perera’s film script based on Sir Arthur C Clarke’s short story Into the Comet, and the late renowned scientist has recognised on the script as ‘quite as good as anything I’ve seen from Hollywood!’ Two of Sir Arthur’s novels have been filmed in Hollywood, and the third, a local production, would have been Maheel’s script had a producer come forward to take up the risk of Rs.5 Million budget.

Maheel’s script ruled 3D computer graphics, non-linear editing, and post processing and compositing Maheel’s son, Thilanka Perera, did the initial special effects for the script when he was 14, and today he is 22, professionally occupying the field.

Maheel started off as a banker, though his childhood enthusiasm rested on camera. However grabbing the camera was a financial risk, and he had to remain in banking for 24 years until his economy was stable.

He recollects his banker days, when he once received a grant from Asia Foundation for a documentary on environment. The documentary was titled Thuru Sevanaka Visithura, which won Unda award beating 52 other documentaries submitted by professional channel networks. Leaving the bank career, Maheel had a head start with his own Dreams and Magic Private Limited which provides digital facilities for filming.

During this period, he maintained contacts with a foreign business magnate who was about to release an expensive filming camera with an in-built Hard Disk. The camera is branded as Red, with a limited number of products. King Kong fame Peter Jackson’s documentary Crossing the Line is one of the trial films shot by Red.

“You should normally transfer the video to computer for digital effects. This is a costly process. Red stores what you film in a Hard Disk or a chip, and it is just a matter of copy and paste job. It saves you the staggering cost of shooting negatives, and no negatives at all if we can completely bank on digital projection.

The Hard Disk of over 300GB can store a film of more than two hours, and the chip of 8GB can store a film of four minutes.”

However the producer who promised Maheel to invest on the camera, was influenced by others not to do so. He had to wait for 6 months until a businessman unrelated to the cinema industry invested on the equipment. The camera is rented out with the profits going to the investor.

“This is the nature of the industry. I have been facing enough backstabbing in the field. I wanted to introduce this digital technology, but a particular high up in the industry said that technology won’t go for Sri Lanka, and blocked the way for me. When you are trying to do something, you will have enough hurdles.

That producer was helpless, because he was sort of threatened that he would not be given films if invested on this. He came to me, explained the situation, and I had to bank on somebody else.”

The body of the camera is designed for flexibility and functionality, weighing 10lbs. The camera contains the most essential gadgets allocating more space to maximise the shooting options.

Red has a wide dynamic range and colour space. Red is the pinnacle of High Definition filming cameras which can absorb the detailed depth of the scene, far more better than the normal 35mm camera. Red can be called Ultra High Definition, as it has 12,065,000 pixels to deliver resolution.

The high-resolution LCD and EVF monitors come equipped with tools for advanced framing, exposure and focus. Unfortunately, as Maheel puts, the local films hardly have an international commercial market.

“The best option is costing down, while maximising the digital quality. For example one of the producers invited me to use this camera side by side with the normal 35mm camera. There is a crystal clear difference.” Maheel has innovated digital characters in some Sri Lankan films too. Udayakantha Warnasuriya’s Ran Kevita’s all digital creatures were born in Maheel’s digital firm.

“One of Ran Kevita’s digital creatures is the demon in the temple along with small other alien-like creatures. All those digital characters were processed here. Udayakantha is going to use Red too in the future.”

Drona to visit Majestic

One man sets out to save the world from the fast approaching catastrophe unleashed by the wicked. The villains are chasing one great secret that was born long before humans learned to control and became the lords of the earth. This secret sleeps in its cocoon without any disturbances and if exposed will cause the ultimate chaos.

So is born the mission of Drona - to protect the secret at any cost for the future existence of human beings. That’s how the journey of the protagonist starts.

He realise that he has to be the ultimate hero and takes the plunge into the deep sea navigating through the murky water filed with fantasy and unbelievable facts. What he sees in this trip are not ordinary living beings, but ones who are capable of just about anything and with unimaginable physical and mental powers. From casting spells for achieving anything under the sun and having a mind with a different colour which makes them look like humans from outside but feel like something else is living under the skin.

To know how the hero unravels the layers of this wonderland, watch Drona, with English subtitles, at Majestic cinema from November 7. Abhisek Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra, Jaya Bachchan and Kay Kay Menon take on the lead roles while the movie is directed by Goldie Behl. Drona is rumoured as a fascinating Indian hybrid of Harry Potter and Indiana Jones. It is a GKR creations and Film Location services presentation and a CEL release.

Ravana might be in Lanka again

Mani Rathnam’s Ravana, which was halted by the forest department of Kerala in Malayatoor forest range near Kochi in Kerala, might resume again.

Sources close to Mani Ratnam, said, “We would try to convince the forest officials and seek their approval to continue shooting. In case, the forest department denies permission to continue shooting, the alternative choice would be to shoot in the jungles of Sri Lanka.” The forest officials found that the director had constructed temporary thatched huts in prohibited areas inside the forest. After the forest department found the violation, they ordered the shooting to be stopped.

The film unit claims that they had put up temporary huts to protect their costly equipment from the incessant rains in the area. The Tamil version features Vikram, Prithviraj and Priyamani among others.

Source:

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