Cinematic tribute to sporting heroes

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It is relatively easy to make a big budget film on a popular subject, but it is difficult to make a small film on an unsung hero. Now that Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra has eulogised the story of Indian runner Milkha Singh, you know about him, but you would still not know about the first Indian boxer to win a medal in World Championship because his untold story has not reached the masses, feel the people associated with Tiger Paw Sports Film Festival, the three-day festival being hosted at Alliance Francaise.
This is the first time that an effort is being made in India to give platform to the unknown directors of meaningful documentaries and the early heroes in sports.
Festival director, Sundeep Misra, says it’s an attempt to encourage documentary filmmakers to create meaningful cinema, “We are trying not to take any commercial film in this festival. We are laying the foundation for good sports related films,” says Sundeep. “About 600 documentaries are made every year, a majority of which comes from the US and Europe. Only 4 to 5 documentaries are being made in India when we have a good number of sports legends. We are making an attempt that independent filmmakers get encouraged to cut past the ordinary,” he adds.
Venkatesh Devarajan, the first Indian boxer to win a medal at World Championship, is ecstatic that now people may about his story. “I was the first Indian to win a bronze in World Cup in 1994. With this festival, where my life is being told though a documentary titled Boxing Babylon: Story if Olympic Deva, made by Spanish director, people would remember me. People should remember that there are other sports besides cricketers,” he says.
Amit Tyagi, director of Karims: A Sporting Dynasty,says, “Earlier if you thought of making a documentary on Major Dhyan Chand, people would think you are some kind of a joker because they feel no story can be told if you don’t have a budget. Fiction is a very different business — you need a star, a big scale, marketing, it takes much more effort. If you don’t have a big amount of money to make a film, you’d never be able to cover our Indian sports legends. However, documentary films are the only solution to this,” he says.
Sybil Mair, film director from UK, who is part of the festival with her short fiction The Equestrian, says she is excited that her work is part of the festival’s Indian debut. “My film has already been to Hawaii, Montreal, Canada, US and Turkey, and now India. I feel it is best to come to a festival and experience it in its embryonic stage. I am hopeful that it will leave the right impact and people will get inspired to know more about sports,” says Sybil.