Suchitra Film Society (SFS) will be celebrating 80 years of Kannada cinema on April 26 and 27 at the Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy, BSK II Stage. The two-day programme is being conducted in collaboration with Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce, Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy and Department of Information.
Speaking about the programme, director TS Nagabharana, said, “This 80th year celebration of Kannada cinema will be something to look forward to. It will be a time to remember the past, while we get involved in the current state of our cinema, which also helps to think about the future. We will also involve cinema practitioners and experts during the two-day programme so that they can exchange views on Kannada cinema. The event will help us to analyse ourselves and look at where we stand today.”
During the event, renowned curator and critic, Meenakshi Shedde will talk about the road map of Kannada and Indian cinema while the session will focus on the past and present state of cinema with a keynote address on the topic ‘From the Centre to the Margins: Now and Ahead for Regional Cinema’.
“Today we have Bollywood and other language films like Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, and Tamil which have not restricted themselves to their own region but have explored world markets, which is not so with Kannada industry. This is one of the reasons, it is considered a small market. Over the past decade, Meenakshi Shedde has contributed a lot to the Marathi industry and with her guidance, there are a few Marathi films which have got noticed at the international level too. We have also noticed that in the past 3 to 4 years, a lot of youngsters are making good Kannada films and they have global ambitions. Today it is not about Bollywood or regional, commercial or artistic, but about good cinema which will be categorised in the world market. And, Meenakshi will be highlighting these issues,” revealed director and actor Prakash Belawadi.
The programme will include an exhibition to showcase Kannada film stills and it will look back at the milestones and the veterans who created them.
The event plans to hold discussions on Kannada cinema with themes like, ‘Now-Concept, Context and Content, What About the Audience?’, ‘The Future Form’, Finance, Marketing and Distribution with well-known participants like Bharathi Vishnuvardhan, Dr Jayamala, KCN Kumar, Sumana Kittur, Pawan Kumar and KM Chaitanya among others.
This apart, veteran actor S Shivaram will be felicitated on the occasion.
Shashidhara, president of SFS mentioned that the entry is free and all are welcome to participate in this two-day programme.