PANAJI: A total of 39 films made by the Films Division on classical music and maestros were shown as part of the 40th International Film Festival of India which concludes Thursday evening.
The section, â€?Moments with the Maestros’ had commenced on 24 November and concluded on 30 November.
â€?Moments with The Maestros… had been inaugurated by Goa chief minister Digambar Kamat who also felicitated Nirmala Devi, wife of renowned music director late Pt. Husan Lal. Guests of Honour and renowned artistes Nagarjuna and Amla were present on the occasion.
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The opening film was â€?Mohammed Rafi – We Remember You’ by Kuldeep Sinha, who is the Chief Producer of the Division. Information and Broadcasting Secretary Raghu Menon, Goa Chief Secretary Sanjay Srivastava, and Film Festivals Director S. M. Khan were present. Apart from a wide cross section of music personalities, film makers and artists including Santoor Maestro Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma, renowned Music Director Anandji and Ravi, and actor Biswajit.
Most of the films were biopics on doyens of Hindustani, Carnatic and film music. These included those on great music celebrities like Saint Thyagaraja, Ustad Allaudin Khan, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Ravi Shankar, Pt Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Malikarjun Mansur, Bal Murali Krishna, Ahmad Jaan Thirakawa, Ustad Alla Rakha, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, Gangubai Hangal, Begum Akhtar, Pandit Ramnarayan, Husanlal Bhagatram, Anil Biswas, K L Saigal, Naushad Manna De,Salil Chowdhury, Mubarak Begam and others.
A large number of music personalities were felicitated as part of this section. They included Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma, Anandji, music director Ravi, Biswajit, Pandit Jasraj, film director Madhura Jasraj who made the film on her father; filmmakers Satarupa Sanyal, Mani Kaul, Dr. Jabbar Patel, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pandit Ramnarayan, lyricist and poet Gulzar, and directors Jagadish Banerjee and Dinesh Kumar Prabhakar.
Some discussions were also held in this section in which several of the maestros took part. These included â€?Changing trends in film music’, â€?Women Directors Talk’, â€?Making of Biographical films’, and â€?Classical Music in modern Indian Cinema’. Sinha, the late maestro’s son D K Prabhakar who is director of music in the in the Films Division, and senior Division Executive Anilkumar N moderated the discussions.
The sale of CDs of the films in this section also registered an all time high, according to Sinha.
The Films Division has held a separate section at the IFFI for the third time in a row. In 2007, it had organized â€?Behind the Frames’, an expo on the technical evolution of cinema through the ages where cinema equipments (camera, light and sound) from the silent era to the digital age were displayed in an aesthetic manner. A week-long festival of select documentary films made from 1948 to 2008 titled â€?Framing Time’ was held at IFFI last year to mark its Diamond Jubilee.
