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Indian Films Find Going Hard At Toronto Fest

A P Kamath

Indian film-makers and their peers from many other countries will have a tough time getting attention to their movies at the 24th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival next month.

For the new edition of the festival is offering unusually high number of steamy films from Europe -- and South Korea.

"We are showing some very explicitly sexy films this year, getting close to hard-core sex,'' Piers Handling, the festival chief, told reporters this week "Film-makers are really pushing the envelope, but it is beautifully done.''

Among the sexy films is Romance, written and directed by Catherine Breillat, about a young woman who decides to test her limits for intimacy and sex after her boyfriend spurns her. Korean director Jang Sun Woo's, Lies is an Asian version of Lolita, filled with sado-masochistic incidents. From Italy, Aurelio Grimaldi's La Donna Lupo is described as "a study in erotic freedom''.

The festival that runs from September 9 to 18, and will screen 319 features and shorts from 52 countries.

Indian films to be shown include Santosh Sivan's Malli, Dev Benegal's Split Wide Open, Murali Nair's Throne of Death and Pankaj Butalia's Shadows in the Dark.

The inevitable clash between traditional values and modern life informs three films. Murali Nair's Throne of Death refers to the electric chair bought by a locality and the innocent man who is its first victim.

Benegal's film is described as a sexy comedy of class conflict pitting the new India of cellphones, fancy cars and the burgeoning middle-class against the stereotypical image of India as a land of exploited street urchins and caste strictures.

The trials and traumas of childhood are documented in several works at the festival, including in Malli in which Sivan explores the mind of a young girl out on a final mission and her amazing relationship with the world around her.

Butalia's Shadows in the Dark recounts the story of a taboo affair between two young men, and the place of women in Indian society.

In the past five years, the Toronto festival has gained high visibility, and is attracting top names. It is considered by many to be among the top four festivals in the world, and a survey by The Los Angeles Times showed that it was the favorite film festival in Hollywood. Many Indian film-makers, including Deepa Mehta and Mira Nair, have gained recognition at the festival.

"Sex or no sex, film-makers from Asia have to work overtime to get people to see their films," says film-writer and documentary film-maker Suprotim Bose. "Many people feel Indian films are rather too slow." And yet, he feels that if a small percentage of over one million Indian Canadians, saw some of the films made by their countrymen, Indian film-makers would be gratified to some extent.

"But even among our own people, there is a hunger for glamour," he adds.

"Could Deepa Mehta's Earth drawn so many desis last year if it did not have Aamir Khan and Rahman's music?"

Among the actors and celebrities coming to the festival are Elton John, Susan Sarandon, Natalie Portman, Robin Williams, Annette Bening, Ralph and Joseph Fiennes, Liv Tyler, Jeff Bridges, Brooke Shields, Claudia Schiffer, Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington.

Among the directors are Atom Egoyan, Norman Jewison, Paul Schrader, Wes Craven, Ang Lee, Bill Forsyth, Wayne Wang, Lasse Hallstrm and Jim Jarmusch.

"It's amazing, it really is, and they're coming here with some really good films,'' Handling said. "It's a tribute to the strength and the importance of the festival.''

The new gala titles include Woody Allen's 1930s-era musical comedy, Sweet And Lowdown, starring Uma Thurman and Sean Penn; Lasse Hallstrm's long-awaited screen adaptation of John Irving's The Cider House Rules starring Michael Caine and Charlize Theron; and Salvatore Maira's 17th-century-era romantic comedy, Love In The Mirror.

The festival program book will be available on August 31. More information and tickets are available through the fest's Web site, http://www.bell.ca/filmfest and its phone hotline, 968-FILM.

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