An inspired bureaucrat brings IFFK into being

 

The souvenir, which was brought out by Chalachithra Academy, traces the two-decade journey of IFFK. “It says that only 20 films were screened at the first IFFK held in Kozhikode.

 

As if that was not enough, he has attributed that wrong information to me in the book. I had told him repeatedly that 156 films were screened at the festival held in Kozhikode,” said Gopinath.

 

“Perhaps, he might have had the 1987 NFDC festival in Kozhikode in mind where only 20 Panorama films were screened,” he added.

 

Gopinath also seemed a bit surprised that he was identified as one of the organisers of the first IFFK in the souvenir.

 

“I was not any organiser, I was the chief coordinator,” he said. Ironically, the first IFFK was organised as a one-off event. “It was K Jayakumar, then the culture secretary and also KSFDC MD-in-charge, who mooted the idea. He said we should do something when the world was celebrating the centenary of cinema,” Gopinath said. That was how the first IFFK came about, as a culturally vibrant state’s humble way of celebrating the centenary of world cinema.

 

Kozhikode was chosen for two reasons. It was this city that responded most passionately among the three cities (Kochi and Trivandrum being the other two) where the Panorama festival was held in 1987. More importantly, it was a place where Jayakumar could do wonders; it was only a year ago he had functioned as the city’s most loved collector. “It was a city where I could bank on my goodwill,” said Jayakumar.

 

As for films, the organisers had P K Nair, the father of Indian Film Archives. “He had by then retired and was living in Thiruvananthparam. He assured us of as many classics,” Jayakumar said.

 

At a time when only film societies screened classics, four popular theatres in Kozhikode screened the world’s finest: Bergman’s ‘Wild Strawberries’, Eisenstein’s ‘Battleship Potemkin’, Griffith’s ‘The Birth of a Nation’, almost all the films of Charlie Chaplin, Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’, and Ritwik Ghatak’s ‘Subarnarekha’.

 

It was also perhaps the most democratic of festivals. “We charged a nominal amount of Rs 5 for a ticket and we were surprised to see workers from the Kozhikode market thronging the theatres,” Gopinath said. He said that though a popular actor like Sukumaran was the KSFDC chairman, it was Jayakumar who was the media darling. “I don’t think Sukumaran was comfortable with this,” Gopinath said.

 

Jayakumar, however, laughs this away. “Sukumaran was very sportive,” he said. After launching IFFK, Jayakumar has curiously kept away from the successive editions. “We have send 40 of our students doing film studies in our University to the IFFK,” the vice chancellor of Malayalam University said.