Quality Indian films enter film fest

hyderabad: indian films at the ongoing 12th international children's film festival in hyderabad prove the fact that in terms of narrative, diction and emphasis they are at par with foreign entries. keeping alive the tradition of cooperative movement in film making, started by adoor gopalkrishnan's "chitralekaha" and john abrahim's "odissi", c v sudhi has directed the 45-minute malayalam film koodaram (tent), made by a cooperative society.asserting that cooperative movement has its merits even in the days of globalisation, cinematographer of the film sunny joseph told reporters, "we are trying for an alternative to the commercial cinema and this cooperative mode suits us fine as it improves the commitment and sense of accountability." when asked how far this movement could succeed, joseph said, "life is a struggle, we are not afraid of failures and we will not give up but fight and take the movement forward." koodaram is tale of an unusual friendship between a kid and a dwarf who meets him at a circus and comes to their house and falls sick. after being treated by the kid's mother the dwarf prefers to go back to circus. shiv kumar, a young talent from tamil nadu, who directed the film ayesha, which denounces corporal punishment in schools, says it was based on an award-winning story and was his first venture. "ayesha", the young girl who was beaten up by her teacher questions as to why there was no scientist in india who could discover something which can take away the pain of punishment and begins her own imaginary medicine to reduce pain. kumar says he picked up the theme, may be, from his childhood days which were a nightmare when it came to going to school and seeing teachers. nearly 25 teachers at a school in tirpur after watching the film took oath that they would never resort to punishment while most of the students wept for "ayesha" and wanted to discover something which takes away the pain after being punished, kumar told reporters and declined that there was some element of melodrama in his film. generation gap, the other indian entry shows the defiance of youngsters at the over-monitoring of elders, say meenakshi and vinay roy, the wife and husband team that made the animation movie. "we made the film to show how much a growing child gets irritated when parents start telling them about the dress to wear, food to take, books to read and so on which lead to defiance," they said but could not give a direct reply as to why they choose animation to tell such a serious subject. the other indian entries in the competitive section are: salim padiyath's cussed letters, singeetam srinivasa rao's little john, aribham syam sarma's paari, s karmakar's ranu and heeraz marfatia's birju.