IFFM 2015 program reveal @ Indian Consul, 1 July 2015

If I had time to Photoshop I'd put Mitu's face on the choo-choo.

A lot of important things were discussed at Wednesday's program launch of the 2015 Indian Film Festival Melbourne (IFFM). Themes of freedom and equality in Indian cinema, the revolutionary 'girl power' displayed in the animated Burka Avenger series out of Pakistan, Bollywood's role in the transformation of Indian society, even the predictably polarising subject of sexuality on the big screen.

What struck me throughout the afternoon press conference at the Consulate General of India, however, was the impossible task Festival Director Mitu Bhowmick Lange and her trailblazing team at Mind Blowing Films faced this year. Last year's IFFM boasted the most beloved star in the Indian universe, Amitabh Bachchan. Even today that sentence beggars belief. Did Bollywood superstar and Indian demi-god Amitabh Bachchan really come to Melbourne last year and participate in a variety of IFFM events, the finale being his appearance at the first-ever IFFM Awards in front of a packed and rapturous Princess Theatre? Did that actually happen?

Yeah, it did. And it was life-changing for all involved.

Time marches inexorably on, of course, and I imagine Mitu & Co. were daunted by the task of starting from scratch and gearing up for 2015's followup. But, like the words of the Little Engine That Could every American kid has programmed into his/her head -- "I think I can, I think I can ..." -- Mitu and her colleagues have pushed aside the weight of heightened expectations and delivered a festival bound to resonate in Australia, India and beyond.

Again.

Madhabi Mukherjee in Satyajit Ray's 'Charulata'

I'll be posting more in the coming weeks about 2015 IFFM offerings before it kicks off Friday 14 August with a screening of Prashant Nair's Umrika, a World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award winner at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. (Festival tickets go on sale 15 July.) As mentioned, Wednesday's press conference was held at the Indian Consulate on leafy St Kilda Road. No glitz, no glam, introduced eloquently by Consul General Manika Jain, the highlight for most was the magnitude of starpower coming to Melbourne: Anil Kapoor and his daughter Sonam, Kangana Ranaut, Imran Khan, Simi Garewal, Rajkumar Hirani and many others.

If those names mean nothing to you, here's a quick primer: Anil Kapoor's an East/West acting legend who's been a household name in India for 30 years. Sonam Kapoor's an actress on the rise whose fashion-sense lands her on magazine covers and outspokenness gives entertainment industry writers bahut headlines. Kangana Ranaut, an attendee of last year's festival, starred in one of 2014's biggest hits (Queen) and the 2015 blockbuster Tanu Weds Manu Returns. Imran Khan's a heart-throb who hails from Bollywood royalty (he's the nephew of Aamir Khan, a genius whose work you REALLY ought to know). Simi Garewal's a living legend who's been a radiant presence at the last two IFFMs. Rajkumar Hirani is back as well. He's only a writer/director with a string of box office success unmatched by anyone. Anywhere. In any market.

Kangana at IFFM 2014.

A truly astounding collection of talent and celebrity. And that's only a small pool of people on their way to Melbourne next month.

Living in Australia means finding many products, services, destinations and just about everything else claiming to be the 'Southern Hemisphere's greatest ...' but what we enjoy in Melbourne every year is verifiably the Southern Hemisphere's greatest annual celebration of Indian cinema.

For 2015, here's verification:

• An opening weekend that intentionally coincides with Indian Independence Day on 15 August. Both the Consul General and Mitu were especially proud to announce a flag-raising ceremony will be held at Federation Square to mark the occasion, followed by the always popular Bollywood dance competition.
• An equality theme with real, actual teeth: Films and documentaries deemed too controversial to be screened in India on gay and transgender issues, acid attacks on women, and religious charlatans, as perfectly satirised in Aamir Khan's PK.
• Screenings of blockbuster Bollywood films that defy East/West categorisation ... they're simply great films. In other words: They're safe for white people! You'll love 'em!
• The usual mix of arthouse and indie films that consistently exceed expectations and nearly always teach this child of the West as much as they entertain. 
• Films from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and other parts of the world where people live and love and lose and have stories worth sharing. 
• A showcase of India's greatest films, including screenings of digitally remaster classics by legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
• A closing night world premiere of Kabir Khan's Phantom starring Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif.

Choo! Choo!

Consul General Manika Jain makes opening remarks.

I look forward to snapping photos of Anil Kapoor standing both in the flesh and in closer proximity to Mitu next month.

Press conference crowd.

As always, I was struck by Mitu's ability to teach as well as promote. She wears her passion for all things Indian cinema on her sleeve but it's the wisdom behind her passion that lingers.

'Finding Fanny'. Losing hope. [SPOILERS]

Pride is the main culprit of 'Finding Fanny', a gorgeous piece of Indian cinema set in modern-day, mildew-covered Goa. Pride is also why the film has zero chance of performing well at the Indian box office: its all-Indian cast speaks clever dialogues in English, the film lacks a strong male hero, and an actress (Deepika Padukone) beloved for her girl-next-door appeal plays a lovely local widow who lusts for and enjoys premarital sex -- outoors!

All reasons for (nearly all male) guardians of Indian cinema to dismiss this film as too quirky, too oddball, too intelligent, too .... ambitious.

Can you even fucking imagine?

Angie (Deepika Padukone) and Savio (Arjun Kapoor).

Finding Fanny doesn't race down a hill like a child's bicycle, all plot and clumsy exposition, like most Bollywood fare. I've seen it twice and without question enjoyed it more the second time. The story is simple and encapsulated by a line Deepika's character Angie says to Naseeruddin Shah's hapless Ferdie: "No one deserves an incomplete love story." A quintet of characters is allowed to breathe and expand, their eccentricities lovingly indulged, from Dimple Kapadia's Rosie Eucharistica (27% of Goa's population is Catholic) hoarding biscuits to Pankaj Kapur's Don Pedro spouting cheap poetry over for Rosie's ample, and apparently fake, buttocks. Arjun Kapoor's Savio is the least fleshed-out character but in a milieu so dominated by comically macho lead males it's a nice change. He may be behind the wheel of the rusty Dodge that takes the quintet along Goa's single-lane backroads but it's Angie and Dimple who are driving everything that follows.

Deepika's the biggest female star in Bollywood right now so it's almost a relief to see her captured in natural light, sans caked makeup and stripper costumes. The Goa of cinematographer Anil Mehta is overgrown and decaying but Angie glows like sand on a beach at sunset. Dimple's Rosie first appears on wobbly heels wielding a collapsible fan like a switchblade but she too is adored by Anil's camera; a later shot of her laying beneath a tree in a field may be the first time I've seen a Rubenesque figure in an Indian film. The pleading sexuality of an older woman laying on her side in a Western-style dress is funny at first, but the longer Rosie luxuriates and drinks cheap booze and chats up the hapless Ferdie, all to the annoyance of Don Pedro, the more she loses her comic persona and becomes what she really is: A desperately lonely woman whose seafaring husband disappeared decades ago. Her relationship with man-child Ferdie is the last thing you'd expect to evolve but it does, which leads to a frustrated, impotent Don Pedro destroying Rosie in the only way he can -- by painting her as an ogre without a face, i.e., without a soul.

Don Pedro (Pankaj Kapur) with his grotesque portrait of  Rosie (Dimple Kapadia).

And that's what dooms 'Finding Fanny'. It's normal in Bollywood -- and Hollywood, for that matter -- for 50-year-old men to be cast with romantic leads the age of their daughters. These men always lack emotional maturity and always gain it from falling in love with women half their age. Here, the characters of Angie and Rosie, in vastly different ways, save men OF THEIR OWN AGE crippled by pride and self-imposed celibacy. The only man who gets an upper hand -- Don Pedro -- does so temporarily before landing at the bottom of the sea with a bullet through his brain in a beautifully justified comeuppance.

Director Homi Adajania is a young man with one commercially successful venture (2012's Cocktail) and two critically acclaimed flops, Being Cyrus (2006) and 'Finding Fanny'. The man has bills to pay so it's fair to expect his next film to appeal to the masses but I hope he keeps chipping away at audience -- and critics' -- expectations. Film lovers around the world stand to benefit.