#IFFIWood, 24 November 2024

“My father was a freedom fighter and following his request to make the Vande Mataram song more appealing to the 90’s generation, I created the popular album ‘Vande Mataram’ by A.R. Rahman,” said noted film director and screen writer Bharat Bala. He was speaking in a Panel discussion on ‘Culture as Context for Cinematic Storytelling’ at 55^th IFFI in Goa.  Reputed writers, Dr. Sachchidanand Joshi and Amish Tripathi were the other speakers in the panel.

Shri Bala said that advertising is all about generating fervour and excitement for a product. Similarly, he wanted to make ‘Vande Mataram’ sound cool for the new generation and ‘Vande Mataram’ album song was a result of this thought.

Shri Bala informed that he is working on a new project called Virtual Bharat which chronicles India through 1000 stories coming from different parts of the country. “Crowd funding of films can give the general public, power to choose the stories they want to watch as opposed to the current system where producer or director decides which story to choose for making the film.” Shri Bala concluded.

Amish Tripathi popular author of ‘The Shiva Trilogy’ and ’Ram Chandra Series’ said that, for many decades now, films are portraying the realities of society. He added that when story teller is alive to his cultural surroundings, more authentic stories will come out.

“Hindi film industry is lacking in making use of the varied stories that our ancient literature provides, whereas regional cinema is far better placed in picking of such stories,” Shri Tripathi concluded.

Famous writer and Member Secretary of Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) Sachchidanand Joshi pointed out that mobile phones are slowly killing the traditional story-telling that takes place in our homes through the medium of our elderlies. He observed that the extra-ordinary stories of common people which are no longer getting circulated through our elderlies are being picked up by cinema and reaching us through the medium of films. “The lack of research while finalizing the scripts based on the classic literature is being compensated by combining the elements from various version of the classic,” concluded shri Joshi.

Renowned writer, Shri Makarand Paranjape moderated the discussion.

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PIB IFFI CAST AND CREW | Rajith/Athira/Mahesh/Darshana | IFFI 55 - 78