The much awaited screening came about on a hot afternoon, driving there the AC didn't seem to have any impact!
The screening venue turned out to be a classroom with an improvised projector running off a laptop. Except that the laptop didn't play DVDs! So the kids transferred the DVD's contents onto a pen drive and then ran it. I thought the screening venue was a disaster for a film school. The audio, running off the laptop was a near complete disaster.
Luckily, or maybe its just a sign of changing India, the classroom was air-conditioned- with not one but two units.
The screening was all right, got stuck a couple of times, but overall pretty acceptable.
Then came the Q&A session, OK a bit of comedy with the direction teacher feeling insecure and running up to speak before me, after making a nuisance of himself earlier!
The questions were perceptive, technical ones as well as aesthetic ones. The history ignorance part was pretty much to be expected.
But overall it became clear to me why this movie's having a hard time- it falls between two areas: its an African film but simultaneously an Indian one and it seems clear that its better to be one or the other. Or else both disown you and you sort of get into a no-man's land- remaining lost and ignored despite the qualities of the story and the overall narrative.
So we have to go with one culture, one set of ideas as the core, not two.
Of course that has to wait until the next movie!
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