There’s a certain kind of hybrid personality that one warms up to instantly – possibly because of a willingness to learn about and do something for a country that is not her own. Selvaggia is Italian – you can tell from her gregarious attitude to life, easy-going personality and laugh-ready husky accented voice. In 1998, after university in Florence, where while studying the humanities she saw her first Indian film, Pather Panchali, Selvaggia decided to put together a festival of independent/parallel Indian cinema in Florence, moved by “the way in which certain emotions are narrated and transcribed on screen”. Particularly since she discovered that no other European city had a festival solely devoted to Indian cinema, discounting the UK, of course.

The name was the easy part – Italy’s River Arno is stretched metaphorically and culturally to the banks of our own Ganga in River To River: Florence India Film Festival (www.rivertoriver.it). Ten years after its inception, Selvaggia sits back with a sense of satisfaction with what the festival has achieved. Growing from edition-to-edition, it’s gaining recognition in Italy; and the impressive fact that they often screen films that Indian visitors haven’t watched before. A fond lover of Indian classics, she also screened a Guru Dutt retrospective on print, a new format for most visitors to the festival.

And yet, her forehead creases at the thought of where it still needs to go. “The first 10 years have been to build up the cultural part and the next the five years will necessarily have to be to build up a market. It needs that leap. It cannot remain on this same level.” She wants to make this the primary film festival for non-mainstream Indian cinema in Europe, where distributors would automatically turn up. “Italy is a country where no Indian film gets released, where we do not speak English, and where there is no home video for Indian films (except for those by Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta). They only know Satyajit Ray, bas. It’s hard but it is also a challenge, no?”

At my query about how she would go about monetising the festival, she reverts softly, “I don’t know. It is so difficult looking for a sponsor. In Italy, the money for culture...they keep on cutting and cutting.” The irony lies in the fact that while this simple, passionate lady, who speaks fluent English and some Hindi, gives impetus to students and documentary film-makers, an audience to animation, retrospectives, short films and full-length feature films (also those made on India by non-Indians) that often would never see the light of day here, she also struggles to garner the interest of Indians. “Although we have the support of the Indian embassy, the Indian tourism office of Milan, of the Indian directors of film festivals and cinema institutions, you arrive at a point where you need the cash! To subtitle the films, for print materials and to perform the necessary functions. I can be paid very little and manage by doing three jobs, but I cannot ask others to do the same!”

Would bringing in the big guns give it the necessary impetus? “Maybe a John Abraham or an Aamir Khan?” she asks, and then adds quickly with a smile, “But no one will know who they are – they won’t get a great reception in Florence!” She reiterates her initial stand: “I have always been pure in my thought that I will not do Bollywood and not do it to bring in the sponsors. We have never screened a pure mainstream film. The festival was born with the aim to promote the other cinema.” Pausing for a thought, she adds, “But at a certain point I want to show at least one mainstream film – I keep saying, ‘we are Bollywood-free’, I have to show them of what we are free!”

And yet, the fact that in Indian cinema (particularly that of the multiplex) the line between art house and mainstream is becoming greyer may lead to popular films finding an audience at international festivals, automatically increasing the latter’s exposure. Selvaggia readily agrees, pointing out that films like Maqbool (2003), Omkara (2006), Taare Zameen Par (2007), Life In A Metro (2007), and last year’s Kaminey (at which point she exclaims with admiration for Vishal Bharadwaj’s cinema and music) and 2008’s films on terrorism have been screened at the festival. Currently she is taking back with her the DVD of this year’s Ishqiya. The turnout also grows: last year saw guests like Ketan Mehta, Nandana Sen, Sooni Taraporewala and Raja Menon in attendance.

She visits India a couple of times a year, actively participating in the process of selecting a film by meeting people and if possible, seeing the actual production. “I love this city (Mumbai). Ten years is a lot – I really feel at home, like I have a life here. A few of my very good friends are here…and there is the sea – which makes everything very different. Every time I leave, I feel terrible.” Maybe it’s time we sat up and took some notice of what lies on the other side of the river?

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