The place was a bit dirty .. so I borrowed a big ( professional ;) broom from the near by petrol pump and cleaned the floor before we spread the 'durrhi' on the floor.
The volunteers at the cafe by then were planning the logistics for tea and snacks.
We unpacked the extension cords and spread the wires and started fiddling with the high end borrowed gadgets.
Some filmmakers too dropped in to submit their last minute entries ( the festival was ' bring your own film' festival ) .
My friend Moonstar was helping me out in all this and Preet Arjun Singh was busy setting up all the equipments and wirings.
By five we were ready with the technical stuff. Filmmakers were there.. along with their friends and families and number was increasing every minute.
Before the first film was beamed, the number of audience crossed 100 !
Was I expecting it or not ? Well deep in my heart yes .. i knew we will have that many audience !
Some Pics from the Fest :
The Filmmakers and their films which were screened at the Festival :
1. Maninder Singh Sodhi : Spirit of Holla Mohalla
2. Ankur Kapoor : Voices of Reason | Tomorrow | Child's play | Humsab Bandar Hain | When on road
3. Gaurav Rana : Time Machine | Fading steps
4. Varundeep Singh : The Race
5. Hemant Goswami : Sports in India | Babulal - The last voice
6. Dhiraj : Smoke
7. Shagun : Short commercials on HP | Nokia | Dirt is good | Virgin mobile
8. Puneet Tandon : Desh ke Khilaaf
9. Sumit Pal : Umeed
10. Sonal : Rock Garden
11. Hitesh Bali & Vinay Saini : Rafta Rafta Zindagi
12. Puneet Arora and Vineet Pawar : Galti Kiski
13. Siddharth : Teenagers and 60s and today
The best part of this edition of GFF was that we screened all the films which we received as we went by 'bring your own film ' policy. Without any theme bounding the festival, the thing that made film festival more attractive was that its programming comprised of videos from various genre and kinds. The package comprised of documentary , fiction, comedy , animations, serious , fun , issue based films and music videos etc . All in all a great package to watch !
So what was it that pulled people to this little organized film festival in a grungy surrounding with films made by local filmmakers including amateurs ?! It was nothing but the 'passion' . It was passion and respect for the art that made people sit on that chilling winter night just to watch what all city filmmakers have to show. That is what has been missing in most of the Business oriented film festivals in the cities before this.To check what does everyone wants , it as best to think what people don't want !
Having been attended a number of national and international film festivals , I personally found that most of them have little space for Amateur and first time filmmakers . With their work neglected and ignored and festivals they are left with lesser motivation to work on their ideas in pipeline.
Also the 'Entry fee' and 'form filling' is one of the biggest deterrent for the filmmakers.( Don't we know artists are a bit lazy about paper work !!)
So we got good number of entries.
Second thing was to procure the screening equipment. Everything from projector to speakers to laptop was borrowed from friend circle.
The space ofcourse as I said earlier , The Cafe Kaffee Kuchh inspired the whole concept of cozy gathering .
Next came publicizing the event !! Do we really need sponsors until and unless we are planning to make money out of it ? NO !
Everyone has his own indie media .. the ever increasing online Social networking and his own space to shout out aloud ! Infact I must tell that most of the filmmakers were my friends on Facebook . And best part was that none of them was friend to each other ( now ofcourse we all are a strong network )
And ofcourse most of Chandigarh press media has always been supportive to our little initiatives with no money to spend on ads etc. ( Cheers to them !)
So when everything was in so very much its place only thing was to connect it all .. the filmmakers, the audience, and the issues and thats where I think I was of some help to play the pivotal role in connecting everything in a string.
The string is ever-growing. I was more than happy to see the glow on face of first time filmmakers on a platform which I myself missed in my initial days of filmmaking and thats the reward I cherish !
More so , filmmakers and participants are already collaborating on projects and are already rolling their cameras an calling it a shot ! Isn't that what Garage film festival was supposed to do i.e ignite the volatile minds with all the possibilities ahead !
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