[Reader-list] Protest against the withdrawal of National Award

Anivar Aravind anivar.aravind at gmail.com
Thu Sep 22 12:13:30 IST 2005


Dear Friends,

Please  Sign in the Online Petition in Protest against the withdrawal
of National Award for documentary on Silent Valley.
http://www.petitiononline.com/silently/petition.html

~Regards
Anivar Aravind
GAIA

To:  Minister of Information and Broadcasting,
       Governent of India

The documentary on the struggle to save Silent Valley rain forests in
Kerala, "Only An Axe Away" directed by P. Baburaj and C. Saratchandran
was adjudged by the Jury of Non-Feature Film section of the 52nd
National Award on 13th July as the Best Educational, Instructional and
Motivational film for 2004. In the Jury citation the Jury mentioned
the following:

"The award for the Best Educational/Motivational/Instructional Film is
given to Only An Axe Away. This  documentary has ventured to narrate
the history of the unique campaign to save the silent valley from
destructive development in a very distinct informative style".

The above citation is taken from a press release issued by the Press
Information Bureau Circular (16:39 IST) which was also available in
the Directorate of Film Festival web site till third week of July. It
was available in here in jansamachar.net a web magazine. It was
reported in the Malayala Manorama Daily, Pune edition of the Decan
Herad, Cochin Edition of The Hindu and other News Papers and TV
Channels.

But after about two weeks this award announcement has vanished
mysteriously from PIB and DFF website and instead say that "NO AWARD
GIVEN" in this category.
PIB Press release (Actual Copy) From Malayala Manorama's archievs
http://www.manoramaonline.com/advt/campus/NationalFilmAwards2004/52_NFA_Awards.pdf
PIB website now contains a changed version:
http://pib.nic.in/archieve/others/2005/52_NFA_Awards.pdf
This is heart breaking news for all of us who are involved in
documentary film making for the last several years. The National Film
Awards still remain one of the very few institutions, which is at
least theoretically committed to recognizing excellence in documentary
filmmaking. That is why everyone related to this documentary greeted
the news of the award with happiness and satisfaction.

In contrast to a huge money minting entertainment film industry,
documentary films receive scant encouragement or support in this
country. The work done by the documentary film makers who struggle to
produce works that strive to
study, document and spread awareness about  issues that affect the
public community without any commercial or monetary benefit is rarely
appreciated.
But still many of them continue to work in this field out of their
commitment to issues and their firm belief in the value of this work.
But the state institutions set up with the aim of promoting works of
excellence,like the Directorate of Film Festival often fail to
consider documentary film making as of any serious importance. The
cursory manner in which the case of Baburaj's and Saratchandran's film
was removed from the awards list after even the award citations were
published, is one more example of how these "poor relatives" are
treated. Imagine what a fuss would have been created if a similar
vanishing of an award happened in the best feature film or best actor
category! The incident seriously questions the credibility of the
National Film Awards and the manner in which Jury decisions are taken.
Furthermore it is a setback to  the morale of all documentary
filmmakers and
others who are concerned about social issues in the country.

We, strongly protest against the manner in which the award for "Only
an Axe Away" was withdrawn. We demand an enquiry into the
circumstances in which this happened, and that until the facts are
brought to light and those who are behind this are held responsible,
the distribution of the awards for the non-feature film section be
withheld.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned


________________________________

Anivar Aravind
Arathi,
P.O.Thangaloor
Thrissur-680581
Kerala



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