Tall plans of restoring a Silent Era classic (Throw Of Dice) on April 25 ,followed by a play on the life of Dadasaheb Phalke directed by Aamir Raza Hussain and Virat Hussain and a week-long screening of classic Indian films in all languages, elicited nothing but a yawn from most of the bigwigs of Bollywood.
Says a diasgusted and disappointed highly-placed source from the I & B Ministry, “They demand money to participate in the celebration of Indian cinema! We wanted the entire film industry to participate, and we invited practically every A-lister. Most of them begged off saying they don’t have time. And those who agreed would quote a huge sum of money to make their presence felt.But sorry, we can’t afford to pay stars to attend an event that honours an art-form which has given them name and fame.We’ve spent substantial funds on the event , restoring and screening classics,etc.We’ve incepted a museum of Indian cinema, plus we’ve put together a collection of motion-picture cameras over the decades.We’ve also established a museum of Satyajit Ray’s artifacts.”
Unfortunately Satyajit Ray’s son Sandip Ray could not attend the Centenary Film festival in New Delhi as his mother is critically ill.
Representing Bengal was the Ray actor Dhritiman Chatterjee. From the Telugu film industry Nagarjuna and Rana Daggubati attended yjr Centenary Film Festival. But there was no one from the Tamil film industry.Neither of the two doyens Kamal Haasan or Rajnikanth.
As for the Mumbai film fraternity Vishal Bhardwaj and Ramesh Sippy attended. The rest pleaded lack of time or demanded money to attend. Preity Zinta and Salman Khan have agreed to attend the Festival later during the week on condition that Preity’s film Ishq In Paris be screened .
As for the rest of the industry the I & B source wishes to ask,
“If the Indian film industry doesn’t care about cinema, who will?”
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