Day 1
I arrive in New Delhi for the Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema. My first stop is Siri Fort where the festivities are underway. As I review the afternoon’s movie schedule and extensive catalogue at the local café, a man walks up to my table and introduces himself as a film-maker. I take the opportunity to get some of the festival gossip and ask him which are the good films on the agenda.

The first movie I see, on his recommendation is Driving to Zigzigland. It is about a struggling Palestinian actor and taxi driver, Bashar, living in Los Angeles. After the film, while checking my email at a computer cluster, I notice the man sitting next to me looks surprisingly familiar. A moment later, I realise he is the lead actor of the movie I had just seen.

“Excuse me,” I ask him politely, “Were you in Zigzagland?” “Zigzigland,” he corrects me. Embarrassed, I quickly ask him his name. “Bashar,” he says, the same as the character in the film. Coincidence? No, it turns out that the entire story is autobiographical. His wife, who also plays his girlfriend in the film, is sitting next to him and joins the conversation. She had written the script and directed the film.

Day 2
Osian’s is an art institution that extends beyond cinema – there is an auction house, an art fund, a nascent publishing house, a design portion and even football sponsorship. Both Osian’s and its founder, Neville Tuli, own a tremendous amount of contemporary and modern Indian art and movie memorabilia – posters in particular. I eagerly wait to see more art at an ABC (arts, books and cinema) auction the following night at the Taj.

I meet the Bengali actresses, Rituparna Sengupta and Raima Sen, at the VIP Lounge. They are here for the screening of their film, Anuranan: The Resonance, which explores the relationship of two couples – Rahul-Nandita (Rahul Bose and Rituparna Sengupta) and Amit-Preeti (Rajat Kapoor and Raima Sen).

Sen describes her experience while portraying Preeti as “difficult since the character was older, more mature and married” as opposed to her real self. Did playing the more mature woman have any effect on her? “No,” she says. Once the film is done, I completely disengage from the character.”

Day 3
Tuli is giving a presentation on his new project, Osianama – the conversion of the erstwhile Minerva Cinema in Mumbai into a base for Osian’s cinema programmes. I’m fascinated to hear what he has to say and also make my own impression of a man who is often described as the ‘enfant terrible of Indian Art’. Well-spoken and charismatic, he is impassioned about the protection of the rich Indian traditional heritage and committed to the idea of a corporate structure for a cultural institution.

That same evening, I head to Taj Mansingh for the first section of the Osian’s auction. By invitation only, the room is filled with bidders. They raise their paddles when the auctioneer calls the price. Then, he looks to the phones and books to see if the floor is matched. Many climb steeply past their listed prices, but the majority seem to fall within estimates. Back in Mumbai, I hear from a gallery director that the sales were disappointing.

Day 4
I decide to spend the entire day only watching movies. I start with an Italian black-and-white film, The Battle of Algiers and then catch up with some interesting Indian independent cinema.
Thriller seems to be a genre between Bollywood and artsy. Bollywood films, with their singing and dancing happy-go-lucky air do not make the cut for Independent cinema. ‘Artsy’ seems to be a euphemism for films that are painful to watch, ones in which viewers leave wondering what the whole thing was about. Independent films have to fall between these two categories, artistically sensitive but still enjoyable – a happy ending, some romance and intrigue. It is not an easy balance to strike and some of the films do better than others.

I get a chance to talk to the director of Manorama Six Feet Under, debutant Navdeep Singh, about the fine line that independent cinema often has to tread. He describes Manorama as “a take on the noir genre told in the context of small-town Indian life. Primarily the film was designed to be an honest and intelligent thriller.”
I ask him about some of the lovey dovey Bollywood dialogues and a particular shot where the femme fatale (Sen, again) gazes in our hero’s eyes through a fishbowl. He laughs and says, “She was supposed to be a little bit silly, even vacuous. There are a lot of Bollywood references used. It’s a genre film, not an art film,” he says unapologetically.

Day 5
The highlight of the last day is the closing ceremony. The awards start at 6.30 p.m. and are followed by a film. The final film is an Egyptian movie Cut and Paste. It is about a headstrong girl who wants to migrate to Australia; the only hitch is that she needs three more points on her application. Realising that these can be achieved only after marriage, she proposes to a man she has recently met and a love story follows.
The closing awards throw the spotlight on foreign visitors. A Frenchman wins two awards for directing and acting and does a charming job posing for the camera. A Japanese winner thanks Osian’s staff for all the work he’s done and then conspiratorially tells the audience, “You know what? I have a new lover.”
We wait and hear him answer, “India”.