Goa : The 44th International Film Festival of India witnessed an interactive session with the Jury members during the ‘Chai N Chat’ session. The panel included Goran Paskaljevic, Jury Chairman, Jury members Atiq Rahimi, Victor Banerjee, Claire Denis, Prasanna Vithanage and IFFI Director Shankar Mohan.

After completing their duties over the past eight days, the Jury celebrated their first day out, with a vibrant interactive session. The session highlighted the various art forms, inspiration and aesthetics involved in filmmaking.

During the session, Goran Paskaljevic (Jury Chairman) said, “The beauty of film making is to speak of the good and bad of your society and not criticize others. You have to be courageous to identify what is right or wrong. When I make a film, I first understand the issues my society is facing and how well I can portray it visually to create good content.”

When asked on what inspired him, Atiq Rahimi said, “For me, I find literature to be a good medium to talk about my own country, religion and company. We don’t have big producers to finance us but yet, we try to do something with the existing mediums. Also, 95% of the people are illiterate and through cinema, we try to educate them and make them more aware of society, values, love and respect.”

The session spoke about violence as a medium and its effect on film making to which Victor Banerjee commented, “No one can universally accept violence as good or bad. All violence may not be wrong. There may be a fundamental truth to it. I also feel entertainment and violence is exaggerated in films.”

It was also observed violent films were becoming more popular than meditative ones. Shankar Mohan, Director IFFI guided them towards the popular film section Soul of Asia. This was precisely why Soul of Asia was conceived, as an oasis of peaceful films, expressing internal rather than external action.

On human values and rights, Claire Denis added, “For some reason, I have always been interested in the stories of people who are exiled and who are deprived of rights. My main motive to make a film is to keep the society in mind and the hospitality adhered.”

Source :  Lokesh Shastri