Rooftop film festivals catching on

Chennai, June 12 (IANS) Ganesh A.P.P., a member of Chennai's Rooftop film festival, is very excited. Only a few days ago New York's Rooftop Films asked him and his friends to exchange their movies with the Brooklyn-based group.

Rooftop film fests have now become a phenomenon across many Indian cities to screen on terraces for a limited number of people unconventional and classical films of various languages that may not be running in multiplexes .

Ganesh, still a student, along with his graphic designer friend Dinesh T.U, loves to watch films. The two are also amateur filmmakers, ready to learn the intricacies of filmmaking.

"Not too many film fests happen in Chennai, and most show only the contemporary crop of movies. Or just Andrei Tarkovsky (regarded as the most influential filmmaker of the post-war Soviet era in Russia).

"I wanted to see the classics. We wanted to see unusual films, we wanted to show films made by amateurs unconventional films that will not be screened in the halls", Ganesh told IANS.

Supported by an NGO called Knowledge Foundation, Ganesh and his team had their first rooftop festival in March on the terrace of a friend's house in Raja Annamalaipuram in the heart of the city.

The films screened included "Hard Candy", "Call Center", "Blood Simple", "America, America Parody", "Hi Dad", "Annie Hall" and "That Four Letter Word".

Many of these are not popular in India.

"But then, would anyone have liked it if we just showed Tarkovsky one after another?" Ganesh asked.

Ganesh and his friends have also launched a website http://rtff.pbwiki.com, which has event pages that can be accessed by anyone.

The events are organised when people take initiatives and log on to the website and volunteer to contribute with DVD equipments, screen, projector or food for the event. Then, a date is decided and the fest is organised for some 40 people.

The festival has caught the fancy of many. Now, National Institute of Technology (NIT) Tiruchirapally's students and teachers are having their own rooftop film fests. NIT Calicut too wants to join the club.

In July, Singapore will have a rooftop film fest, with content contributions from Tamil Nadu.