Freedom movement film to open three-day festival

PUNE: A rare, 30-minute film featuring Indira Gandhi as a little child, Motilal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Sardar Patel and Mohammad Ali Jinnah will be the high point of a unique film festival scheduled for next week.
Titled India''s Struggle For National Shipping, the film was made for the Scindia steam navigation company by Paul Zils, a German film-maker who pioneered the documentary movement in India, in 1946, said K.Sasidharan, director of the National film archive of India (NFAI) here.
"It was chosen by the government of free India for screening across the country.
A friend in the NFAI told me about its existence. We had to get a clearance from the company, which was perhaps not aware of the importance of the film.
When we acquired it six months ago, it was already disintegrating," Sasidharan said.
Now, the Indian Navy also wants it, because it is also a part of Indian maritime history.
Significantly, the German film-maker had the courage to make a film on the nationalist movement while the British ruled India.
The film will be the opening exhibit at the film festival on the ''film noir'' genre, to be organised by the Indira institute of communication (IIC) at the NFAI from February 23 to 26.
Film noir — literally ''dark film or cinema'' — refers to the cinematic trend that focused on the dark side of human existence, which peaked following World War-II, IIC director S. Nanjundiah said.
Two high points of the genre — John Houston''s The Maltese Falcon and Roman Polanski''s China Town — will also be screened the same day.
On February 24, Carol Reed''s The Third Man and Orson Welles'' Citizen Kane will be screened, while Jean-Luc Goddard''s Breathless, John Houston''s Asphalt Jungle and Alfred Hitchcock''s Rear Window will be screened on February 25.
The last day will see the screening of Basu Chatterjee''s Ek Ruka Hua Faisla and Orson Welles'' Touch of Evil.