Film Appreciation

Digital cinema : India on the upbeat

K S Sivakumaran

Film-makers on focus
*Pankaj Butalia
*Michael Pilz
*Sherad Anthony
*Lav Diaz
*Roxlee
*Khavn De La Cruz
*John Torres
*July Massaccesi

Some Lankans might have a love-hate relationship with our giant neighbour, India; but to me it's always love for several obvious reasons. I am proud to be a Lankan to have been inspired by many aspects of the Indian culture including that of cinema.

Speaking of cinema, Digital film-making has come to stay from that now a few films are being made in that country using the format. As we know the world is almost completely being digitalized. But the problem is that most theatres are not equipped with the necessary wherewithal to screen these films.

As Pankaj Butalia has aptly described: "The heart of digital cinema lies in its opening up the possibilities of a truly personal cinema unencumbered by the demands and constraints that control the production and distribution of cinema."

He also informs us that the film The Nothing Men was the first fiction film to have been made on the revolutionary Red One camera. The director of the film Mark Fitzpatrick is an Australian.

Explaining what its specialty is he noted that "this camera is designed as a modular, upgradable system, so users can add their own hardware- with tech specs comparable to the best in HD, if not better -all delivered at a price just slightly higher than that of upper end digital cameras"

Technically speaking I wouldn't know what it means as I am not a cinematographer. However, our own great cinematographers maybe able to explain the intricacies involved to us.

I was privileged to be at the 40th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) two years ago when Digicinema 2009 was launched. On that occasion several international films were shown. Although I couldn't watch all such films (since my attention was on the conventional cinema), I could gather information on some films and share it with our interested readers.

Michael Pilz, an Austrian filmmaker in his film Invocation of Bliss discovers mystery and fact on the same road. According to the director it's both fictional and documentary film making in Iran.

Filipino directors Sherad Anthony Sanchez' film Imburnal, and Lav Diaz's film Butterflies Have No Memories were all 'personal films'.

But another filmmaker from the same country, Roxlee made an interesting film titled Green Rocking Chair.

It's a film about searching for the original Filipino writings before the Spaniards came and colonized the Philippines in 1521.

Khavn De La Cruz is considered as the father of Philippine digital filmmaking. His film Squattepunk talks about slum life where there is no hope for redemption. Another film by him was The Middle Mystery of Kristo Negro. It is a sort of religious film based on animal slaughter.

Yet another Filipino film-maker was John Torres. His film was called Years when I was a child outside. It is almost an auto-biographical film.

Plato's Academy is a film by Filippos Tsitos of Greek origin living in Germany. A patriotic Greek man finds out that his origin was from Albania and that worries his family.

An Argentinean woman filmmaker, July Massaccesi's film Fish Head is a film of complicated issues among a husband, wife, son who are all sad with mental and physical suffering. The man in addition encounters a dating with another young girl who lives with another man who tortures her.

Also from Argentina was a film by Grupo Humus- The Hole Thing. It's a funny film based on imagination that cannot be real.

There is a claim that a Malyaalam film Moontram Athoral (Third Peron) was the first digital movie in India. And there is another claim that the first Hindi digital film was KISMET-Ek Anokha Moad. A Tamil film called Naan Kadavul (I'm God) was the first digital feature film in India. An updated list is not available.

As digital technology has improved, this practice has become increasingly common. Many mainstream Hollywood movies now are shot partly or fully digitally.

Digital cinematography's acceptance was cemented in 2009 when Slumdog Millionaire became the first movie shot mainly in digital to be awarded the Academy Award for Best Cinematography[1] and the highest grossing movie in the history of cinema, Avatar, not only was shot on digital cameras as well, but also made the main revenues at the box office no longer by film, but digital projection. In 2010 the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, El secreto de sus ojos, was won by a movie shot digitally."

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