In a first of its kind initiative an ‘Australian Film Festival of India’ was organised at Ranchi University (RU) on Monday. Hundreds of students from various post graduate departments gathered to attend the fest. Among the three selected films namely ‘Rabbit Proof Fence, ‘The Rover’ and ‘Healing’ were scheduled to be shown but only the first one was screened due to the lengthy duration of the movie.
Inspired by a true story, the first film was based on the History of Australia. It was about children of tribes who were compelled to learn the culture of white Australians. Such incidents of compulsion were noticed in the nation from 1905 to 1930. Sources maintained the remaining films will be shown at Journalism and Mass Communication department in the coming days.
Notably, Veteran film critic Vinod Bhardwaj, Chief Guest of the occasion felt presenting three films back-to-back may cause problems for the spectators. However, he denoted similarity between the tribal culture of Australia and Jharkhand. “Both the regions are known for voices of their respective tribes,” he said. Highlighting the usage of technology, he suggested the students on financing films through Facebook and recording films in mobile.
The fest was hosted by the State University in collaboration with Newcastle University of Australia. Vikrant Kishore, lecturer at School of Design, Communication and Information Technology from the foreign university represented here. Kishore who hails from Ranchi said, “Most of the migrants in Australia are Indians. So, we thought of establishing MoU with Indian Universities.”
Australian Film Festival has been organised at Chennai, Mumbai, Goa, Bangalore and Nasik. Kishore acclaimed three weeks back interaction with RU Journalism and Mass Communication department students. On the other side, Bhardwaj, students and teachers viewing Rabbit Proof Fence were expecting sub-titles in the entire movie which was not visible. “The English ascent of India and Australia is different. Moreover, India is basically Hindi speaking belt. Sub-titles in English would have helped students in understand Australian English without any difficulty,” said Journalism department’s Faculty member Santosh Oraon.
Similarly, MA Botany student Anjali Kumari and MA English student Heena Kumari said sub-titles would have helped Hindi medium students in learning English language easily.