Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Self Financing College Admission mess in Kerala


Self financing colleges in professional courses in Kerala are a hot topic ever since its incision in 2002. The issue is heightened during its entrance examination and admission time. The present government is finding it gruesome to handle the issue. The private college managements are now adamant enough to despise the government and government nominated PA Mohammad Committee’s decisions. But the major question to be addressed is its political and social angle.

The political angle is the dual polity by the opposition parties. When UDF reigns, the LDF cramps and when LDF rules, UDF mourns. Why this happens? Because, of the massive strength and freedom that the private managements have gained due to their unfair relations between all the political parties, religious sects and even the judiciary. The political leaders do not want to hurt the capitalistic attitude of the managements, who are mainly religiously associated.

The social slant of the matter is to be dealt strategically. Kerala is a land which eschewed “evil-constructions” in the society as a result of umpteen reform movements and social agitations. The central achievement of these struggles were, the division between the haves and the have nots. But this division will emerge if the private professional issue is settled amicably at the earliest. The students with financial capacity will have an edge in all the admission process. At the same point educational merits are side lined.

As a solution, the government should implement 50: 50 ratio, that is to admit half of the seats in private institutions from the entrance ranklist with government fees and the rest of the half, as their inclination.

Monday, January 10, 2011

ZEPHYR

ZEPHYR

Direction: Belma Bas

Country: Turkey

Language: Turkish

IFFK Award: Best Debut film in competition

Zephyr is a 2010 Turkish drama film directed by Belma Baş, which tells the story of a young girl Zefir’s longing for her mother while staying with her grandparents for summer holidays in the beautiful mountains of the Black Sea region. Zephyr is a strong-willed little girl, spending her summer holidays in her grandparents’ house up in the Eastern Black Sea Mountains. With her mother often away traveling, she has had to get used to being alone. Zephyr takes refuge in daydreams, creating whole worlds in her mind to cope with her mother’s absence. Zephyr looks forward to her mother’s return. She spends her days helping her grandparents out with daily tasks, and roaming the outdoors. One day her mother finally and unexpectedly arrives. However, she comes back not to pick her daughter up, but to say goodbye to her before embarking on an even longer journey. Yet Zephyr has made up her mind not to part with her mother ever again.

Son of Babylon

Son of Babylon

Director: Mohammad Al-Daradji

Country: Iraq

Language: Arabic

Southern Iraq, 1991. The American army suddenly appears, casting a long shadow over Saddam Hussein’s bloody regime. HUSSEIN, a Kurd soldier in the Iraqi army, staggers out of a brutal military intervention, his wounded friend’s body slumped over his shoulder. Covered in dirt, sweat and blood, the two men are on their way home. Exhausted, they stop to spend the night beside a campfire in the desert. Hussein plays the melody he’s written for his soon-to-be born son. At dawn, an Iraqi military Jeep suddenly looms up before them. Mistakenly taken for a rebel, Hussein’s arrested and carted off to a Republican prison. As time surpasses, in Northern Iraq, 2003. Two weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein. News spreads that several prisoners of war have been found alive in the south. UM-HUSSEIN, a frail old woman dressed in black, and AHMED, her 12-year-old grandson, trudge along a dusty mountain road. She’s on a mission, determined to find the son who’s never returned from the war… Her only son, Hussein. As these two forgotten souls traipse across the battered landscape, their journey runs parallel to that of Hussein, so many years before. Their stories intertwine… As the captive is shuttled from one prison to the next, steeling himself against the agonies and despair that await him at every turn, his mother gradually comes to witness the true horrors of a senseless war run amok.

Capsuling the essence of the gigantic legend it can be remarked as “A willful young boy follows his just as obstinate grandmother in a journey across Iraq, determined to discover the fate of her missing son, Ahmed's father, who never returned from war.”

My Mangolian Mother

My Mangolian Mother

Director: Ning Ren

Country: China

Language: Mandarin-Mangolian

The film is a touching epic drama based on a true story. In the 1960s, about 3,000 Chinese orphans were sent to Inner Mongolia. In the Xilingol grassland, Qiqigema Erji adopted Chen Chen and Yu Sheng even though her husband disapproved. The children grew up as Mongolian nomads. But 20 years later, upon hearing the news that biological parents were looking for their children, Chen Chen left for Shanghai in the hope of meeting his parents. Yu Sheng finally did meet his parents and faced a choice as to where he wanted to live. In the film we have to define the nuances of roles and meanings a “mother” will have to play within the paradigm of family, identity and maternal devotion.

Please Don’t Disturb

Please Don’t Disturb

Director: Mohsen Abdul Vahab

Country: Iran

Language : Arabic

A rising TV host follows his wife and tries to persuade to change her mind, who announced to divorce him for the domestic violence. A Muslim scholar who lost his money and documents endures the hardship to retrieve them. An old couple hires a repairman but they are so anxious to let him in their house.
Please Don’t Disturb unfolds the three stories dealing with moral contradiction and dilemma with a backdrop of present Tehran. Documentary-like objective camera maintains its observing manner while it moves one story to another and one character to another. The film shows how easy the ethical value, religious conviction or human sympathy can be shaken by an insignificant incident and how easy they can be compromised. On the flip side, this film provides the opportunity to look at women’s issue in Iran implied with divorce and remarriage. In the end, Please Don’t Disturb becomes reportage of social value of ever changing Tehran.

FIVE HOURS FROM PARIS

FIVE HOURS FROM PARIS

Direction: Leon Prudovsky

Country:Israel

Language:Hebrew- Russian

FIVE HOURS FROM PARIS is a remarkably assured first film from director Leon Prudovsky, delving into complex emotional themes for one so young. The script, co-written by Prudovsky and Erez Kav-El, allows Keren and Yaralova to explore all the nuance and shy humour that characterize a new attraction. More importantly, though, the film underscores what we all want to believe is true: when it comes to love, what matters is not money or sex but soul and spirit. The abiding pleasure of Five Hours from Paris is experiencing the gentle albeit profound impact each one has on the other’s life. They are unlikely lovebirds – Lina is highly educated and has lived in several countries, while Yigal has rarely left his Tel Aviv suburb – but he sees her in a way that her partner of many years does not. When Lina’s husband learns of her emotional attachment to another man, she is forced to make an excruciating decision. Yigal insists he wants nothing more than friendship, and the two begin a tentative emotional minuet.

Potraits in the Sea of Lies

Potraits in the Sea of Lies

Director: Carlos GAVIRIA

Country: Colombia

Language : Spanish

Following the accidental death of their grandfather, amnesic and mute Marina and her cousin Jairo, a roving photographer, decide to take a trip back to their hometown. They travel in a beaten up old Renault, taking pictures as they go along. Each day they spend on their journey, they find themselves more and more haunted by their traumatic past as the story of her traumatic past starts to unfold.
Carlos Gaviria alerts the viewers to the suffering of his native Colombia where 10% of the population is displaced by war. Through the road trip, he showcases a scarred landscape controlled by military in superb documentary-styled sequences. But, how this film really differentiates itself is the way the gloomy and death-ridden daily life is represented through a distinctly Latin American fantasy. One of the notable things is about its clarity in shots- the opening shot strikes the very essence of the film. We can find traces of stream of consciousness technique too employed in the film which is appropriate to enjoy the credit from “God’s Own Country”

Carlos GAVIRIA

Carlos Gaviria has been cinematographer on more than twenty features and documentaries both in the U.S. and in Latin America. He directed and produced the documentary Declarations of War with Franz Baldassini. A native of Colombia, he has a Masters from the film department of New York University.

Buried Secrets

Buried Secrets

Direction: Raja Amari
Writer: Raja Amari
Cinematography: Renato Berta
Country: Tunisia,Switzerland,France
Language: Arabic
IFFK Award: FIPRESCI Award for the best film in competition

A strict Tunisian woman and her two daughters- Aicha and Radia; live secretly in the servants' quarters of an abandoned estate. They stay hidden and find a way to be self-sustaining while being completely off the grid. One day a free-spirited couple moves into the house and the youngest daughter becomes enthralled by their way of life, putting her own family at risk and leading to unexpected consequences. The plot is equal parts family psychodrama, coming-of-age melodrama, and contemporary thriller. Anchored by a stunning cast of actresses, the film is a slow-burning parable of a woman's - and a generation's - awakening desire for freedom, sexuality, and modernity.

Cold Water of the Sea

Cold Water of the Sea

Director: Paz Fábrega

Country: Costa Rica

Language:Spanish

Rodrigo and Mariana is an affluent, loving young couple on a New Year's break. Late one night, they are driving along the remote south Pacific coast when they come across seven-year-old Karina, who appears lonely and desperate. She tells the couple that she has run away from home, and confesses to them a dark secret. Rodrigo and Mariana resolve to stay with the girl through the night and help her, but in the morning, Karina is gone. The couple checks into a hotel and continue with their holiday, but Mariana is haunted by what the girl has told her, and becomes increasingly more distressed. In the meantime, Karina has returned to where her family is camping on the beach close to a nature reserve, where adults fear falling into the tunnels their children have built under the sand and poisonous sea snakes have made their way onto land. Paz Fábrega’s Cold Water of the Sea is set in a place of idyllic beauty, though the focus is on the experiences of two women of different ages, from different social backgrounds, and the internal, psychological troubles in their paradise. We find a juxtaposition of the 21 year old Mariana and the seven year old Karina. Both these characters face a traumatic psyche due to disequilibrium state of normancy.