IFFLA 08′: Interview with festival director Christina Marouda

A couple of weeks ago, Yama Rahimi attended the Indian Film Festival in Los Angeles (from April 22nd to the 27th). Now in its 6th edition, the festival works at promoting a greater appreciation of Indian
cinema by showcasing films about India and the diverse perspectives of
the Indian Diaspora. Here is his coverage.

Yama Rahimi: How did you get involved with the festival?
Christina Marouda: I came up with the idea of starting an Indian Film Festival in Los Angeles six and half  years ago since  this is our 6th year because I worked with couple of International film festivals and my background was marketing and distributing films as well as programming films. I realized that there wasn’t  a platform for Indian films. You would see one or two films that were shown at some festivals every other year but even that in my opinion wasn’t a representation of the country had to offer. Since I had an interest in India anyway, I thought there was a niche but I did my research and found there was an Indian community here. Also that year LAGAAN had been nominated for an Academy Award as a best foreign film and MONSOON WEDDING was coming out. Also there was this huge interest in Yoga and spiritualism in LA, so all these elements made me realize that there was a platform for this festival and only a question of time before India would be on everybody’s radar. Now six years later all the studios are looking at India for local and co-productions. It would have been difficult for us now to establish ourselves when everybody is already interested because we wouldn’t have been ready for the attention, so it took us to establish our vision and now we are ready for the attention.

YR: Wow, that’s impressive that you also founded the festival  given that you are from Greece. What was your first Bollywood film? Do you remember?
CM:  Hmm. I don’t remember which film but it was in Greece where I grew up. I think it was either MOTHER INDIA or MUGHAL-E-Azam.

YR: So was there a market for Bollywood films in Greece?
CM: Not really but it was on TV. But in the 70’s those film came into Greece and were shown theatrically and then on TV.

YR: What kind of films are you looking for in the festival and what do you expect for the future?
CM: Well our criteria is mostly films produced within the year of the festival but we are willing to go back two years depends on the films. The films have to be shot by Indians or be about India like “Shot in Bombay” directed by Liz Mermin who’s an American but lives in the UK.

YR: How’s  your  festival perceived in Bollywood?
CM: Well it’s getting better since some films made it into Cannes (Devdas) Berlin (Om Shanti Om) and Locarno (Lagaan) since they saw that the festivals helped their films. So the studios in Mumbai are open but it depends on the timing of films being ready. For example our closing film “Mumbai Cutting” is a world premiere because all the filmmakers who were at our festival have become our ambassadors in India.