IFFI 2024, 15: Accreditation for media-persons, and what they should expect if and when it is granted

Setting-up and Opening MyIFFI (your account at the website), you can register on a form for getting accreditation as a media-person, to attend the International Film Festival of India, which is held regularly in Panaji, Goa (since 2004). If you fill the form correctly, meeting their expectations, some of which are very demanding, you will get a response that your application is registered. This does not grant you accreditation. If you fit their criteria, which they will take a week or two to assess, you could expect another email, saying that you have been accredited. Not every media-person is granted accreditation to IFFI. The categories of accreditation cover film journalists, employees of media organisations, freelancers, photographers, videographers, All India Radio, correspondents, private radio channel correspondents, Doordarshan correspondents, employees of TV channels, and social media-persons.

All are given cards that they have to hang on their necks, to access to their status/area of interest-related events. They are also given a brochure, and a shoulder bag, which has been a C class product in 2024 and earlier festivals too, liable to tear and break at the metal points. Besides getting access to their areas of operation, media-persons can avail of free tea and coffee, from a dispenser, and some biscuits, if they are lucky enough to reach the person operating the dispenser at the time(s) when he has stock of biscuits, which are kept in a small plastic box. Many medical practitioners advise their patients, and the general public, not to drink tea or coffee if they do not have something light go with it, like biscuits, to avoid acidity, but media-persons who are unlucky, get only the beverage, not the biscuits. It is a 'come at a time when the person manning the vending machine opens a packet(s) and queue-up to get first come first served service.'

But that isn’t a constant. You could be given sandwiches, pastry and other savouries, if a different government was in power when the festival under question is held in the coastal state of Goa, or at the Centre, in New Delhi. Not only that, you could be invited to free ferry cruises, cocktails and dinners, breakfast press meets and lunch get-togethers, if you were in luck. That luck has run out a few years ago. For the last few years, either none of what is listed above is happening, or media is being carefully kept away from such events, and media is expected to keep mum since it is given free accreditation, and normal delegates (not invitees), have to pay to register. So, stripping it down to a bare minimum, you could expect only tea, coffee and ‘lucky’ biscuits. The biscuits are of the cheapest variety available, and many do not like to eat them. Perhaps that is why they are chosen, to minimise the biscuits’ bill. That is how it was at IFFI 2024 too.

In return for these favours, the media is expected tom extoll the virtues of the 9-day fest, for, otherwise, they may be denied accreditation the following year. Even at rock bottom, there have to be four cocktail/dinner parties during IFFI: the opening night, usually thrown by the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, one thrown by the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG), one by the Press Information Bureau PIB), which is the nodal authorities in managing all media-related affairs of the Government in power), and the closing dinner, the sponsor of which may vary, and includes the Chief Minister of Goa. At best, the press is invited to the PIB gig only. At all other events, the Press, barring a few exalted, members, is boycotted. The Press is also invited to the inaugural and closing ceremonies, which may very well begin about one hour later than the scheduled time, and end several hours later. No arrangements are made to carr

Pushpa 2-The Rule, Review: You can Push-swag Smuggler Superhero Pa to the brink, but he’ll be back in a blink

Pushpa means flower in Hindi. Our protagonist is not a flower, but a fire. Not any ordinary fire, but as he declares, to his nemesis, Shekhawat, “wild fire.”. This ‘flowery wild fire’ learns the skill of swimming and holding his breath underwater for much longer than the average swimmer, instantaneously, when forced to fetch a cricket ball from the bottom of a pond. Apparently illiterate, or, at best, semi-literate, he lives in the Chittoor district of Telangana, so his natural mother tongue is Telugu. We watched the Hindi version, and the lip sync differs only slightly, thanks to good dubbing. Almost all the credit titles are in Hindi. Pushpa speaks to his wife and a few others, occasionally in Marathi, and masters spoken Japanese while being transported hidden in a container, to Yokohama, Japan, for about 3 weeks. He can also speak Bengali. These are some of the minor skills in which Pushpa has majored. In the pre-credit titles scene (a là James Bond movies) at Yokohama, he shows you that when he is bound by hands and feet, and suspended high above (The Rule?), lifted by a giant crane, you must suspend your cinematic disbelief totally, for what follows is a display of calisthenics that circus performers, with decades of experience and training, would shy away from, but are innate to Pushpa, and greeted with thunderous applause by fans of Allu Arjun, in the auditorium. Pushpa 2-The Rule is for them. Others are not likely to whistle or applaud at such ultra-super-human acts. And that includes some discerning and demanding critics, like me.

Okay, so the hero has the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in the 160s-180s range. He uses that to transport contraband red sandalwood from Telangana to Madras, and onwards to SriLanka. After all, he is President of the Syndicate. This syndicate consists of two types of men: First, the harvesters of the sandalwood, and second, the henchmen and ‘slaves’ of Pushpa. Both will go to any extent to deliver the pricey red sandalwood to foreign shores, where it fetches a price of crores of rupees (one crore equals ten million) per consignment. The route to the port at Rameswaram in Chennai is hundreds of kilometres long, and there are some 100 trucks in the convoy, add to that a bald super-cop named Shekhawat (a Rajasthani surname), with a scar along his pate, who will do anything to stop the Pushpakers from crossing the Telangana state borders. Never mind the fact that Shekhawat is dumb enough to let the crops grow, the trees felled, the wood cut to size, loaded on trucks and well on its way. He believes in catching the smugglers red-handed, and getting media and police glory. Also, never mind the fact that besides doing his duty as a Superintendent of Police (SP), he is not averse to demanding a large share of the spoils in order to let the business prosper, when he is in a bargaining position. Shekhawat was there in Pushpa 1: The Rise, but will not be seen in Pushpa 3-The Rampage.

Writer-director Sukumar could well have named the trilogy Pushpa SWAG, Pushpa SWAGGER and Pushpa-SWAGGIEST (assuming that the flower power runs out of ammo after Part 3), for Pushpa is nothing without the swag. He walks with one shoulder raised, wears a stone dead look, and several metallic accessories around his neck and on his hands, which he jangles time and again to remind you that they are there, and what is Pushpa without the cross-legged, inciting sitting position? It was this posture that led to his sacking as an ordinary day-labourer, carrying wood from one place to another. That he is doing so deliberately is explained in one scene, wherein Pushpa is sitting in an aircraft, thousands of feet abov

Pushpa 2-The Rule, Review: You can Push-swag Smuggler Superhero Pa to the brink, but he’ll be back in a blink

Pushpa means flower in Hindi. Our protagonist is not a flower, but a fire. Not any ordinary fire, but as he declares, to his nemesis, Shekhawat, “wild fire.”. This ‘flowery wild fire’ learns the skill of swimming and holding his breath underwater for much longer than the average swimmer, instantaneously, when forced to fetch a cricket ball from the bottom of a pond. Apparently illiterate, or, at best, semi-literate, he lives in the Chittoor district of Telangana, so his natural mother tongue is Telugu. We watched the Hindi version, and the lip sync differs only slightly, thanks to good dubbing. Almost all the credit titles are in Hindi. Pushpa speaks to his wife and a few others, occasionally in Marathi, and masters spoken Japanese while being transported hidden in a container, to Yokohama, Japan, for about 3 weeks. He can also speak Bengali. These are some of the minor skills in which Pushpa has majored. In the pre-credit titles scene (a là James Bond movies) at Yokohama, he shows you that when he is bound by hands and feet, and suspended high above (The Rule?), lifted by a giant crane, you must suspend your cinematic disbelief totally, for what follows is a display of calisthenics that circus performers, with decades of experience and training, would shy away from, but are innate to Pushpa, and greeted with thunderous applause by fans of Allu Arjun, in the auditorium. Pushpa 2-The Rule is for them. Others are not likely to whistle or applaud at such ultra-super-human acts. And that includes some discerning and demanding critics, like me.

Okay, so the hero has the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in the 160s-180s range. He uses that to transport contraband red sandalwood from Telangana to Madras, and onwards to SriLanka. After all, he is President of the Syndicate. This syndicate consists of two types of men: First, the harvesters of the sandalwood, and second, the henchmen and ‘slaves’ of Pushpa. Both will go to any extent to deliver the pricey red sandalwood to foreign shores, where it fetches a price of crores of rupees (one crore equals ten million) per consignment. The route to the port at Rameswaram in Chennai is hundreds of kilometres long, and there are some 100 trucks in the convoy, add to that a bald super-cop named Shekhawat (a Rajasthani surname), with a scar along his pate, who will do anything to stop the Pushpakers from crossing the Telangana state borders. Never mind the fact that Shekhawat is dumb enough to let the crops grow, the trees felled, the wood cut to size, loaded on trucks and well on its way. He believes in catching the smugglers red-handed, and getting media and police glory. Also, never mind the fact that besides doing his duty as a Superintendent of Police (SP), he is not averse to demanding a large share of the spoils in order to let the business prosper, when he is in a bargaining position. Shekhawat was there in Pushpa 1: The Rise, but will not be seen in Pushpa 3-The Rampage.

Writer-director Sukumar could well have named the trilogy Pushpa SWAG, Pushpa SWAGGER and Pushpa-SWAGGIEST (assuming that the flower power runs out of ammo after Part 3), for Pushpa is nothing without the swag. He walks with one shoulder raised, wears a stone dead look, and several metallic accessories around his neck and on his hands, which he jangles time and again to remind you that they are there, and what is Pushpa without the cross-legged, inciting sitting position? It was this posture that led to his sacking as an ordinary day-labourer, carrying wood from one place to another. That he is doing so deliberately is explained in one scene, wherein Pushpa is sitting in an aircraft, thousands of feet abov

https://www.filmfestivals.com/blog/the_robin_menken_reviews/my_love_affair_with_marriage

“My Love Affair With Marriage”  

Posted by Robin Menken

     Signe Baumane’s multi award-winning “My Love Affair With Marriage” is a exuberant mixed-media feature animation, a musical blend of neuroscience, gender issues and old fashion romance- gone wrong!

      Baumane’s signature style goes back to her earliest shorts in the late 90’s. Her poignant characters are sexy and pulpy-featured and, by 2014, when she made her video Tarzan and her first feature "Rocks In The Pocket”, Baumane adopted a vivid color palette.

      Baumane's "Rocks in my Pockets" was a 100-year history of depression and/ or suicide of women in her family. "My Love Affair With Marriage" is far more upbeat.

      Baumane, who is delightfully funny in person, explained that she made many films about sex because it was so interesting; then she made a film about depression, which she describes as “more interesting than sex”. Then she decided to make a film about a combination of the two- marriage!

       Born in Latvia, Baumane's film contains many satiric notions of life in the era of the Soviet Union: I.e. a repressed Soviet era funeral and a subsequent civil marriage, both culminating in an official choral recording of the State Anthem of the USSR. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the drab Soviet women, now dressed in Western ‘Slut-wear’ try to school Zelma in the new cultural norm-transactional sex for riches in the Wild Wild East era of Oligarch kleptocracy.

     A daffy animated, musical Bildungsroman, the film details young Zelma's journey to wholeness.  Zelma (Dagmara Dominczyk) begins as a questioning, spirited girl unable to fit in to the stereotypical behavior of girls in her culture.

     Like a sexy Greek Chorus, the Mythology Sirens (a trio of animated Harpies voiced by the the band Trio Lemonade: Iluta Alsberga, leva Katkovska, Kristine Pastare) comment on Zelma's crazy journey.

      As a young girl in her village on Sakhalin Island, Zelma moons after a herd of cats. (In fact, she becomes a cat when she expresses her rage). A few years later, now a Riga city dweller, she’s dreaming of her Soul Mate.

       Sent to a State school, she is initially shunned by girls and boys alike because she fights for her self respect. Modeling herself on the most popular girl Elita (Erica Schroeder), Zelma begins a devout self transformation, fueled by peer pressure, fairy tales, and the advice of her mother.

     Newly conditioned to not fight, Zelma tries crying to ward off a knife attack while her craven ‘Soul Mate’ fails to come to her defense, when a pack of school boys mug her after school.

     As a young woman, unofficially enrolled in Misogyny U, she learns to get along with men, willingly suppressing her desires, cooking, cleaning and ironing for them, even supporting them in exchange for ‘helpful’ criticism, sexual betrayal, emotional and physical abuse.

     Her first husband Sergei (Cameron Monaghan) is another artist she met in University. After the sudden death of her partying, druggie best friend Darya (Carolyn Baeulmer) shell-shocked Zelma marries Sergei. 

Reinas- (Queens) Switzerland's International Oscar Entry.
Posted By Robin Menken
Swiss-Peruvian director Klaudia Reynicke’s quiet family drama is set in 1992, during the economic collapse in Peru, a national curfew and the constant attacks of the far-left terrorist group Sendero Luminoso (The Shining Path).
   An opening archival television news report features Peru’s minister of the economy announcing that in the next 24 hours, the price of milk will jump from 120,000 Peruvian intis to 330,000, the cost of sugar, now 150,000 intis, will double and the price of a baguette, 9,000 Peruvian inti, increases to 25,000 Peruvian inti overnight)
   Easy going Carlos (Gonzalo Molina), known as "el loco" works as a taxi driver and night watchman, and barters black market sugar and whatever comes to hand to get by.
   Estranged from his upper-middle class wife Elena (Jimena Lindo) and his growing girls- frisky teenager Aurora (Luana Vega) and younger sister Lucía (Abril Gjurinovic), Carlos shows up after along break and tries to spend time with his Reinas ("Queens.") Hurt by his long disappearance the girls are suspicious and wary, especially Aurora.
   Elena (Jimena Lindo), has landed a job in Minnesota and has seized the chance to escape Peru's downward spiral. Before she can leave with her girls she needs Carlos official signature to authorize their daughters leaving the country.
   It's the last few weeks before their trip and Carlos keeps postponing signing. Needing his signature and wanting his daughters to have time with him before the move to the safer U.S. Elena encourages him to spend time with the girls, and the wily teller of tall tales slowly wins them over.
   Carlos will say anything to deflect responsibility for his actions: he wrestled crocodiles in the jungle, and has the scar to prove it; he's a secret police agent (and has the papers to prove it), he's a Quechua speaking archeologist. Lucía is easier to convince.
   In a wry opening scene driver Carlos chats to his passenger. Claiming he's an actor, he lists off his roles in Hollywood productions, dropping the names of
Boris Karloff and Roger Corman, names which mean nothing to his good natured client.
   Gonzalo Molina's laidback charm, especially in two lovely trips to the beach, creates a sort of mystery about Carlos, which Reynicke maintains. He moved to his own internal beat, satisfied with his dysfunctional Peter Pan life.
    Carlos drives his old Lada across the dunes in a wonderful father daughter joyride which solidifies their new bond.
    Carlo's sadness emerges as he begins to bond with his 'Reinas'. Even his use of the nickname takes on a new  gravitas as he reluctantly starts to grow up. He struggles to avoid his habitual lying. The script suggests many reasons for his estrangement, including is possible political stance, but wisely lets it simmer undisclosed.
    Conflicted Lucia wants to stay with her mother. Aurora has serious unfinished business in Lima and decides to try and stay with Carlos.
    Clever shots and production values suggest the period in a contained way. Muted colors stylize he memory aspects of the period piece. There's an elegance to the home of wealthy Tita (played by Spain's Susi Sánchez), Carlos world is his beat up car and his uncle's warehouse.
    Subtleties

By Kate Elfatah

The 45th Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) was capped off with an elegant award ceremony on Friday, November 22, at the Cairo Opera House , which honoured a wide variety of film accomplishments around the world. I was lucky enough to be there, to experience first-hand the passion and craftsmanship that underwrote this year’s stellar line-up of movies.

The Best Film was the Romanian film, Bogdan Mureșanu’s The New Year That Never Came. It was an intense drama that made audiences and critics fall in love with Mureșanu’s storytelling abilities.

The Silver Pyramid Award for Best Director went to Natalia Nazarova’s Russian film “Postmarks,” an honest portrayal of human empathy in the midst of tragedy. The movie also won awards for Maxim Stoyanov as Best Actor and Special Mention for Best Actress for Alina Khojevanova.

The Brazilian film director Pedro Freire won the Bronze Pyramid Award for Best First or Second Work for his elegiac coming-of-age drama Malu. Yara De Novaes had an excellent performance in the movie and was nominated for the Best Actress.

Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman shared the Naguib Mahfouz Best Screenplay for their Italian movie “Vittoria,” an arresting film about identity and home.

The festival also highlighted Arab cinema with the Horizons of Arab Cinema Awards. “Spring Came Laughing” — directed by Noha Adel in Egypt won Salah Abu Seif Award for Best Director and FIPRESCI Prize. It also gave Rehab Anan a Special Mention for Best Actress.

The Best Arabic Film Saad Eldin Wahba Award went to “A State of Passion”, a moving Palestinian film starring Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi.

The Youssef Chahine Award for Best Short Film was given to the Chinese filmmakers Kai Xue and Hong Jiexi’s “David”.

And those are merely the highlights of an evening well worth remembering. This year’s Cairo International Film Festival continues to be an essential place to celebrate world-class cinema, and I was delighted to participate in this year’s celebration of filmmaking. See all the winners at the festival HERE.