Director Im Kwon-taek to be conferred with ‘lifetime Achievement Award’ at IIFI this year
If we talk about cinema in the new millennium, we can’t escape the rising prominence of South Korea, a film industry which is slowly making the world aware of its visceral scope and artistic leap.
The 47th edition of the International Festival of India (IFFI) at Goa this year has its focus on the Republic of Korea as an acknowledgement of its force. The fest will bring contemporary Korean films to cine-goers, while honouring renowned filmmaker Im Kwon-taek with the lifetime Achievement Award. Internationally acclaimed Korean film director and writer, Im Kwon Taek is being conferred with prestigious ‘lifetime Achievement Award’ at IFFI.
“I am very happy to receive such an honour, but I personally feel that I have not created a masterpiece yet and this award is a message to make better films in the future to come,” Im said.
His career spans more than 5 decades and he has made more than 100 films. In 2010, Im directed his 101th feature, Hanji and his 102th feature, Revivre in 2014, which was presented in non-competition section of Venice Film Festival. He received the lifetime Achievement Award at Asian Film Awards in 2015.
Talking about the Indian cinema, Im Kwon Taek shared, “I am fond of the work of Shahrukh Khan and liked 3 Idiots and Slumdog Millionaire. Responding to a question on influence of India on Korean films, he informed, “Even I have made a film on Buddha and reincarnation. It would be a great opportunity to co-produce films with India.” Sharing his experience, the director said, “I visited India twenty years ago to attend a festival in Trivandrum. At that time I felt like returning home due to cultural difference, but once back home I missed the distinct culture of India.”
In 2000s, he directed Chunhyang (2000), the first Korean film in the competition of Cannes Film Festival and Chihwaseon (2002) that won the Best Director Award in Cannes.
The another acclaimed Paris-based filmmaker and novelist, Vijay Singh, will premiere his new film Farewell My Indian Soldier at the International Film Festival of India. “I might live in Paris but my films Jaya Ganga and One Dollar Curry have travelled to 60 festivals worldwide. However, I always make it a point to premiere my films in India,” said Vijay Singh.
Farewell My Indian Soldier is a docu-fiction on the 140,000 Indian soldiers who came to Europe to fight in the First World War and is a first-ever treatment of the subject on film.
Following its market screening at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, this film has won great praise from critics, film-makers and audiences alike. Renowned film critic Derek Malcolm described it as an “excellent film… A deeply affectionate study.” Eminent filmmaker Shyam Benegal said, “The film should be shown widely in our country as it is a very valuable piece of First World War history in which India played an important part, but was not given the credit it deserved.”
Since the completion of the film, two special screenings of the film have been hosted to pay homage to the Indian soldiers - the first by Ambassador Alexandre Ziegler at the French Embassy in Delhi and the second by Jean-Yves le Drian, French Defence Minister, and Mohan Kumar, Indian Ambassador to France, at the iconic Ecole Militaire in Paris.
Co-produced by Silhouette Films and RSTV, and supported by the Embassy of France in India, Farewell My Indian Soldier uses rare archive, historical testimonies, 100-year old Indian war songs and 600 insightful letters written home by soldiers to tell the fascinating story of Indian soldiers of whom 10,000 were never to return to their country.
This film marks the first attempt to visually depict the experience of colonial troops during WW1 from a non-Eurocentric angle, adopting instead the perspective of an ex-colony.
The film brings to the fore what Indian soldiers lived through on the Western Front: the heroic period during which they fought in legendary battles, like those at Ypres and Neuve Chapelle; the casualties and diseases that afflicted them; their experience of the British army and the English hospitals; the tragicomic situations the French and the British faced while feeding the Indian soldiers wedded to their caste and religious beliefs; and the hospitality of the French hostesses, which won the hearts of the Indian soldiers during their convalescence in French barns.
“In this film, the story of Indian soldiers through the eyes of human affection and love. During their furlough, some Indian soldiers and French women developed affection for each other in the barns, and children were born. These Indo-French ‘illegitimate’ children became the victims of social ostracism. This film is inspired by the story of one such child,” recounted Vijay Singh . He further added, “In this film, a young girl (Paloma Coquant), a descendant of an unknown Indian soldier and his French hostess, journeys across France, Belgium, England and India, and weaves around it the fascinating story of the Indian soldiers in WW1.”
“It’s quite unbelievable, and even intriguing, how the experience of 140,000 Indian soldiers and civilian workers on the Western Front, part of the 1.4 million sub-continental soldiers mobilized worldwide, could have escaped the attention of cinema or any television in the world. In fact, even in terms of the contemporary WW1 film footage available in the archives, there’s stuff on the other White soldiers but very little on the Indians. Again, much fewer Indian troops were awarded for their bravery than their British counterparts. In many ways, this film is a re-write of such aspects of the history of the First World War,” he concluded.