A Cinefan review

MARQUEE

I have an on-again, off-again relationship with the annual Cinefan (now Osian's Cinefan) film festival, which I've attended ever since the second edition in 2000. On the one hand, it's creditable how the fest has grown and become more professional each year.

As someone who first became interested in world cinema in the early 1990s, when options were painfully limited (I would trudge to embassy libraries to rent from their small collection of videos and keep an eye out for one-column notifications in newspapers about anonymous screenings going on in some corner of the city), it's gratifying to see the democratisation of non-mainstream films, with packed auditoria at Cinefan, and the fact that it's suddenly become almost fashionable to be able to discuss world cinema.

Of course, this has also been facilitated by the pirated-DVD culture (in my part-time office, colleagues now regularly exchange discs of Kiarostami and Wong Kar-Wai films and discuss them as unselfconsciously as they would any Bollywood movie), but festivals like Cinefan do help focus interest.

At the same time, any fest that screens 120-odd movies is bound to be a hit-and-miss affair. If you're hoping to see a few unheard-of gems, you usually have to be prepared to sit through a few duds too. And while a journalist or film student can make such an investment of time and effort for potentially little reward, it's too much to expect of the casual viewer, who might only be able to go for two or three movies and would want all of them to be at least watchable.

Cinefan showcases movies from small countries with underdeveloped film industries and lack of financing "" places that have great human stories to tell but often lack the resources (directorial assuredness, professional scripts, experienced actors, technical polish) "" to tell them effectively.

Also, in countries where the government helps fund movies, it's common to see films that are little more than amateurishly made propaganda features "" more concerned with pedantic finger-wagging than with the art or craft of cinema. For a viewer raised on more sophisticated films (whether mainstream or non-mainstream), it's possible to empathise with the very particular role cinema plays in those countries while at the same time feeling no obligation to sit through the films themselves.

Given all this, my Cinefan experience was quite rewarding this year. As it happened, the most pedantic film I saw came not from a tiny country but from the respectable house of Amol Palekar, whose Thang (The Quest) was a tediously scripted and acted story about a woman coping with her husband's infidelity "" and crusading for his gay rights at the same time! But here are some of the films I did enjoy. Try to get the (pirated) DVDs if you can:

My Father My Lord (Israel): This superb debut feature by David Volach is about the conflict between religious faith and humanity, but there is no grandstanding here: instead, it plays out on an intimate scale, through the story of a small family "" an orthodox Rabbi of the Haredic faith, his wife and their little son Menahem who go on a pilgrimage to the Dead Sea, where tragedy awaits.

Driving in Zigzigland (US): As lighthearted in tone as My Father My Lord is intense, this is an audience-pleasing story about a Palestinian named Bashar who works in Los Angeles as a cab-driver while simultaneously pursuing his dream of becoming a Hollywood star. There are little pockets of triteness "" especially in some of of Bashar's conversations with customers "" but this film has a grounded, sincere quality that raises it above many other "cross-cultural" dramas.

Crossing the Dust (Iraq): An example of a film that's palpably low-budget and non-professionally made, but which still manages to pack a punch because the director keeps things spare and simple. Two Iraqi soldiers come across a lost little boy named Saddam (not the best handle to have at this time, because the ex-president's regime has just been toppled) and try to help him return home. Marked by the piquant humour one often sees in films from countries where people live with the constant sounds of rumbling tanks and falling rockets.

Falafel (Lebanon): A night-in-the-life story about restless urban youngsters on the streets of Beirut: zipping around on quaint scooters, partying, getting into fights, trying to score. This Michel Kammoun film drifts aimlessly in places (which may be part of the point, for it's a film about drifting), and you need to know something about Lebanon's social history in the last few years to really appreciate it "" but it's well shot and acted, with a great soundtrack, some nice family scenes and many good laugh-out-loud moments.

(jaiarjun@gmail.com)