I Don’t Believe In Marketing: Anamika Haksar

“Marketing is not tied to my film’s success. I don’t believe in it. What’s important is that my own people are connecting with it”, said filmmaker Anamika Haksar. “We still have the colonial hangover, so once we get recognition from foreign film festivals, then we are accepted in our country”, said she, in the ‘Meet the Press’ segment of the IFFK.

Discussing about her film ‘Taking the Horse to Eat Jalebis’ which is in the Competition category of the fete, she said that she documented the life of the homeless people in the streets and blended it with fiction. “This is my debut film and I got inspiration from Malayalam filmmakers like Aravindan, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, and John Abraham”, she added.

“For Iranian people, Indian Cinema represents two different things. For the middle class, it is Bollywood and for film professionals and enthusiasts, it is the films of filmmakers like Satyajit Ray”, said Iranian filmmaker Rouhollah Hejazi, whose film ‘The Dark Room’ is in the race for the Golden Crow Pheasant as well.

Praveen Morchhale, director of ‘Widow of Silence’, Mostafa Sayari, director of ‘’The Graveless’, Vinu A K, director of ‘Bilathikuzhal’, Amitabha Chatterjee of ‘Manohar and I’, and Piyush Singh, producer of ‘Bhonsle’, took part in the session.