[1]On the day of National Awards ceremony, filmmaker Ashvin Kumar along with many others won’t really be celebrating. They plan to tie a black band on their arms to symbolise the death of independent cinema.
“We will be protesting against the lack of government support to independent filmmakers. We want to create awareness to seek a cultural status for the art of filmmaking,” says Ashvin. The filmmakers are not demanding any financial aid, says Ashvin, but they want government to support filmmakers with the infrastructure that is already in place.
“Government buys Bollywood films for crores of rupees while many filmmakers, who win National Awards, never really get a platform to show their own films. If you can give us awards then at least buy these films too. Why can’t Doordarshan show our films? After all, a filmmaker needs audience,” he says.
Ashvin has made eight films including Inshallah, Kashmir, Inshallah, Football, Little Terrorist and Road to Ladakh, and won international awards. In 2005 he became the youngest India writer/director to get an Oscar nomination.
“However, none of my films have been shown in India. There are many filmmakers like me who have to struggle to raise funds for films even after winning awards,” says Ashvin.
Onir is also getting many filmmakers together for the cause, says Ashvin. He adds that government apathy forces many filmmakers into commercial cinema since it’s almost impossible to make revenue from films.
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/t2jpg-216