After breakfast, the editor, the hubby and I made our way to the public library. The allotted slot for our screening was 1pm at the public library auditorium and we got to the venue by 11 am.
Upon reaching the venue we realized that our movie poster that was up at the ticketing desk has disappeared. Given that we had spent quite a considerable time just yesterday figuring out one round of disappearance by these posters, this was beginning to get quite annoying. In any case, we walked upto the ticketing desk and asked them what on earth happened to the poster now. They very politely and apologetically informed us that the Mausams poster was stolen last night by unknown thieves.
Yup. The poster was stolen. First a dog takes off with a Mausams DVD and now someone steals a Mausams poster. Must admit that we have the most fascinating things happening to us!
All of us were highly amused, but given that we couldn't do much about it, we simply proceeded to take pictures around the area and kill the time before the screening.
At about 12:45 pm, under exponentially increasing nervousness, we made our way in to the auditorium.
To our huge surprise, we found that there was a pretty good crowd in the auditorium waiting for the Mausams screening! The 1pm slot had been the most poorly attended one over the past few days because of the clash with the lunch hour and prayer time. So we were expecting to see very few people in there but was very amazed by the turnout! I must say a big part of that has been played by my editor who had been spreading the word about the film amongst the visitors to the library, other delegates, volunteers etc. But even he looked surprised at the number of people who were seated just as we entered!
Anyway, the turnout made me feel pretty happy and also pretty nervous because now the film better be good or they would all be so disappointed!
There wasn't much time to think of anything more because before I knew it, the emcee was announcing the film and inviting the three of us on to the stage. We were given bouquets and I spoke a bit about the film and its making. By the way, I must also mention that the hubby, when introduced as the actor cum husband etc., got a roaring applause, mainly by the female audience! Just before we went on stage, several girls had been crowding around him and telling him how handsome he was and asking for "single" pictures with him (i.e. they didnt want to stand in a group around him but take individual pictures with him)! God save us all. Needless to say he enjoyed all the attention!
Then it was time for the Mausams screening. We settled down in one of the front rows. I crossed my fingers and prayed for a good reaction from the audience. This was the first time I would experience Mausams as it being watched by an auditorium full of perfect strangers. During the screenings in Kerala and Singapore, many of the audience were friends or family or at least acquaintances of the cast and crew in the film, and they would obviously tend to be biased. But this time, there will no such bias and the reaction would be honest. So needless to say, my fingers were tightly crossed.
At first, things went for a toss, when we saw that the subtitles were not working. So many of Hindi dialogues were hard for the audience to follow. But soon the crowd started to get the hang of it. Luckily the Hindi dialogues too were mostly towards the beginning only, so afterwards they didn't have any issues following the film.
Watching Mausams with that audience in Dhaka would be one of the best experiences of my life! We realized that despite the subtitle glitches etc., the audience was thoroughly enjoying the film! . In fact, I would say this was the most encouraging response we have had till date... probably even more than in Singapore given that they were all were perfect strangers! The audience was so involved in the film that they were laughing, cheering and clapping throughout! Sitting there and listening to them reacting to the film like that was truly an out of the world experience!
As the final scene wrapped, the crowd gave us a huge applause and I thanked God with all my heart! Mausams screening was immensely successful!
People rushed up to us to congratulate and to my utter astonishment I was asked to give autographs! Thus I gave my first few autographs as a film maker!
We stayed around for a bit talking to the audience and enjoying their very positive feedback! Then we were rushed away for lunch as it was well past 3pm. Lunch was Bangladeshi Chinese food which was very similar to the Indian Chinese and was quite yummy.
Post lunch, still basking in all the glory of a successful screening, we went back to the screening venue. The hubby and I tried to watch a Turkish movie but the very gory and torturous violence in it drove us out after a while. So instead, we just hung about, talking to the people around.
For dinner, we were taken to the Gallery of Fine Arts which was exhibiting the stunning works of the expatriate Bangladeshi artist Maruf Ahmed. I am usually not a fan of abstract art but I must say that I found Maruf's works very captivating. His choice and use of colours were truly brilliant! The dinner was hosted by the very smart and witty Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh who was also chairing the international jury of the festival.
Over dinner we once again caught up with the many friends we had made over the festival. One of the highlights was when a three-time National Award winning Indian director called me over and gave me very positive feedback for Mausams. Coming from a person of his calibre and credentials, it made me feel on top of the moon!
Post the dinner, we made our way back to the hotel - happy with the turnout at the screening, happy with the reaction during the screening, happy with all the feedback post the screening. All three of us were simply elated!
Back at the hotel, we got the hubby to watch the edit we had worked on for the short film. While the editor and I had done about 80 - 85% of it over the last few days, I realized that the editor had finished up another 5-10% of it on his own, which was awesome! We only had to do some remaining finetuning work, so we stayed up until 3am and finished it off! Thus we had the full and final edit of Inganeyum Oru Katha, my first Malayalam (short) film!
A great day of films - not just an awesome screening for Mausams but also a full edit for the next project. Absolutely blissful!
210 more to go.
Congratulations! :)
ReplyDeletethank you! :)
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