At the end of the 27th edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), there was a lot of excitement, loud cheers for the movies and its makers, and a little bit of sneering by disgruntled delegates who could not watch films because of too many people in too little space. Long applause followed the announcement of winners. Bolivian film Utama won the coveted Suvarna Chakoram award, while director Tayfun Pirselimoglu received the Rajata Chakoram for the Turkish film Kerr. Alam, which tells the story of a Palestinian teenager in Israel, won two awards.
But when filmmaker Ranjith, who heads the state’s Chalachitra Academy that organised the festival, took the stage on the closing day – December 16, Saturday -- there was loud booing from the hundreds gathered at the Nishagandhi auditorium. It was mainly in protest against the arrest of a few delegates who protested at the IFFK after they were denied seats for Mammootty’s film Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam by Lijo Jose Pellissery, despite having reservations and waiting for hours in a queue.
Ranjith said that he was warned that he would be booed when it was his turn to talk. “I said it is a good thing, let them get good at it. I am here with my wife, and I had told her that there would be booing and we would enjoy it together. Booing is not new for me, I began life in the Students Federation of India (students wing of the CPI(M) that heads the ruling front in Kerala) in 1976,” he said. A day later, on Saturday, he told News 18 that he considered the booing only as some noise, similar to the one made by street dogs.
He had also reacted angrily to the delegates who were protesting at the Tagore Theatre after the first screening of Nanpakal went wrong. Lijo has a huge fan following at the IFFK, and Mammootty fans also flocked to watch the film’s premiere. A huge crowd had formed in front of the theatre, hours before the scheduled screening. But some of those with seat reservations could not enter the theatre. Following this, several delegates protested against the Academy’s handling of theatre reservations. The police arrested three of them and booked cases against others.
Premkumar, a long-time actor and vice-chairman of the Academy, told Manorama News that in a land of democracy – protests, reactions, opinions and disagreements among people were natural and should not be suppressed. Modern Kerala was formed through such fights, he said. Admitting that there were some flaws in the organisation, he said that the academy never made a police complaint or called the police. But the police were alert given that such a huge crowd was present for the festival.
Though Ranjith did not take responsibility for the flaws in the reservation system, Minister for Labour Sivankutty said during the closing ceremony, that they would look into the issues and try to resolve it next year. The process would be evaluated after taking the opinions of delegates and examining the criticism about conducting the fest, said Ajoy C, the academy’s secretary to TNM. Ajoy said that the 100% reservation system which received a lot of criticism was not started this year but was followed in the preceding two editions of the IFFK as well.
The number of delegate registrations this year had crossed 13,000 while theatres, by various accounts, carried only a little more than 7,000 seats. “They issued passes that were nearly double the seating capacity. And there is 100% reservation. Every time we tried to book in the allotted time in the morning, the reservation closed within a minute or two. All seats would have been booked by then. We ended up standing in the queue for the unreserved for a long time. If there were vacant seats available after the reserved queue was over, they let us in,” said artist KP Thomas, a senior citizen who found it hard to get an entry to watch films he wanted to.
Even if they managed to enter the theatre, they’d end up in the front rows, and the lights would have gone out. “It was very difficult for senior citizens who may have trouble with their eyesight and all. I hope that they cut down the 100% reservation system and allow at least a 10% reservation for senior citizens. They should also not allot passes to so many delegates when the seating capacity can’t accommodate it. If there are 7,000 seats, the maximum delegates should be limited to 10,000,” Thomas said.
Ajoy said that the maximum reservations on a single day were around 21,800, and the pattern was that at least 10,000 people who made reservations wouldn’t turn up at the theatre for the screening. “These would go to the unreserved. Each day, at least 8,000 people in the unreserved queues were able to enter and watch movies. We have had an understanding with the theatres to allow people to sit on the steps or the floor to watch the movie when the seats were over,” he said. That has been a long-held practice at the IFFK with delegates taking whatever space was available when the seating was over.
It was at the screening of a few Malayalam movies that the situation went out of control, according to Ajay. Apart from Nanpakal, the screenings of Mahesh Narayanan’s Ariyippu and Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s Vazhakku, witnessed large crowds and dissatisfied delegates walking away without being able to watch the films. “For Nanpakal, we accommodated 11 to 12 people who had reserved the first show and couldn’t get in, for the second screening. For the third screening at Ajanta theatre, we made sure every last delegate in the queue got in,” he said.
Lijo at the screening of his film at IFFK
Ajoy says that reservations were necessary as crowd control was more difficult at times and queues went out of hand. “On the first day of the festival, there were more than 12,800 reservations made in the general category, 5,180 among the students, and 1,014 senior citizens. Among the 13,000 plus delegates who registered, 12,080 people saw at least one movie for the festival,” he added.