Panjim: The 53rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) got off to a panoramic start on November 20 with as many as 280 films from 79 countries set for screening over 9 days for locals, film delegates and tourists visiting Goa.
Goa Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai, while inaugurating the IFFI 2002 at the Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Indoor Stadium, recalled the late Vice-President S. Radhakrishnan’s words during the second IFFI where he declared that the film festival’s two important objectives were “national integration and artistes’ solidarity.”
Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Singh Thakur said the focus is on making India a +powerhouse+ of film content creation, especially regional cinema by scaling up regional festivals, in the country’s transition from “Amrit Mahotsav to Amrit Kaal” on completion of its 100th year of Independence.
Earlier, M/s Signe Baume, Director of the Latvia/USA/Luxembourg animated feature film “My Love Affair With Marriage”, noted that making this film – a parody with sarcasm — provided her the opportunity to use +science as a tool+ in highlighting the story which is partly “fiction/life truths.”
“We built 3-D sets and clicked photos whose characters moved in the rooms,” she said while noting that this was a laborious process that involved the use of about 60,000 drawings. Urging for more personal stories to be highlighted in Indian films, Baume noted that such films needed to show “what it means to be a man or woman.”
“Ï believe women should be politically, socially equal to men and that we can change society into a more forgiving one if we can have more stories from different women,” she added.
Commenting on Indian cinema, Brian Schmidt – who produced the adventure film “The Island of Lost Girls” — said “Bollywood films are amazing and we have had more of Indian films released specially on Netflix.”
Island of Lost Girls Thrills Adventurist Viewers
A unique entry at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2022 is “The Island of Lost Girls”—an adventure film that draws viewers into the marine environment to witness a struggle for survival by humans amidst nature’s wild creatures.
“Our film +The Island of Lost Girls+ is an film that highlights human and nature interacting in an adventurous manner with the girls struggling for survival amidst sea lions, elephant seals and other marine and land wildlife,” said the U.S-based filmmaker couple Anne-Marie Schmidt and Brian Schmidt – parents of six rambunctious kids.
The film has been the official selection at: The Cinemagic Film Festival, Moscow International Film Festival, Fantasia Film Festival and presently at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI).
The film’s story revolves around three young girls trapped in a sea cave amidst crashing waves, hundreds of sea-lion seals and giant elephant seals in the rocky marine caves of Baja, Mexico.
The film’s girl actresses were none other than their three young daughters –teenagers Avila and Autumn, and four-year-old Scarlet – who took up their roles with an ease of fish to water and performed their own stunts in swimming through underwater caves, while battling aggressive seals and leaping from death-defying heights.
Director Anne-Marie (USA) said that she drew upon the idea of making this film after reading a true story titled “Ïsland of Blue Dolphins.” She then read her film script to the kids every night until they were excited about making the film.
Then, juggling the children’s school times alongside filming schedules that involved quick trips to Baja, Mexico became the norm for one-and-half year before sitting down for editing and completion of the film. However, the advent of COVID-19 proved to be temporary stumbling block for the film’s release, which was taken up with much gusto as the disease waned later.
In a bid to understand the natural surroundings for their film, the family even spent three days living on the Island whose lone human resident was the lighthouse keeper.
Highlighting safety of the kids and themselves on shooting locations, the film Producer Brian Schmidt said the film was shot inside an coast-hugging inner cove where leopard sharks in the water were of no harm to the kids, while the outer cove formed a deep perimeter for the deadly +Great White+ sharks that prowled the waters sometimes in search of sea-going seals, sealions and elephant seals.
However, the children were never in harm’s way as there were no recorded shark attacks in that inner cove area, he said, adding that the filmmakers main focus was on waiting patiently for high waves and the sea lions surfacing in their chase of fish prey.
“Our one worry was about raising funds for the film as we did not have the required finances, while another problem was carrying the film equipment down rocky cliffs with our kids,” Anne-Marie said while recalling that her husband Brian swam with different marine creatures before the kids ventured into the water.
One strange problem faced by the filming duo was the presence of about 10,000 to 50,000 of shrimp-like marine creatures float around in the coastal, cave-dotted waters of Baja, Mexico. “These creatures kept nibbling at us while we were swimming, but the discomfort was negligent and bearable,” she said.
Another problem arose daily when the film shooting locations kept changing due to the ever-moving seals changing their fishing grounds and the couple had to scout the marine creatures’ latest site before rushing there to film their story.
“Besides building a set, our biggest challenge was to find locations and check the wave lengths before rushing to shoot the film – which was of course grueling and hard on the kids,” Schmidt told this correspondent after an IFFI press conference.
To a question, Schmidt said “We love nature and are always involved with it. Hence this film. I am from California whose coastline witnesses gatherings of lots of giant elephant seals that can even stand at a height of about 12 to 15 feet when they get aggressive. Besides, San Diego area and the Central Coast of California are breeding grounds for the Great White Sharks that prey upon these seals.”
To a question about how the three kids felt about their film, 12-year-old Autumn was the lone one who expressed a desire to take up acting as a career and the entire family was in agreement for making a sequel to this film. The eldest girl Avila said she felt comfortable shooting the film under her parents’ directions, while the youngest girl Scarlet expressed joy in acting with her elder sisters “even if they were mean to her sometimes.”
