Love and controversy make headlines at BIFFes

The festival will screen Blue is the Warmest Colour, a film that has made waves from its first screening, on the third day. Even before it was released, the two young actors—Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux—who play the lovers in the film, accused the director Abdellatif Kechiche of an exploitative work atmosphere and stated that they would never work with him again. Several members of the crew quit in protest, calling the filming ‘moral and ethical exploitation’. It is said that the marathon sequence took 11 days to film. So much was the clamour that Kechiche said the film should not be released because it has been ‘sullied too much’.The biggest criticism against the film (besides the work conditions) is that it shows lesbian fantasy as imagined by a straight man and played by straight actors. We can’t see much harm in that. It is, after all a work of fiction. However, it will be interesting to see how an Indian audience reacts to the film, especially with such graphic sex sequences. The film, on the other hand, received critical appreciation from different corners. It won the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. And courted further controversy, when Steven Spielberg insisted the trophy be shared by the director and the young actresses. It also won the FIPPRESCI prize and the Louis Delluc Prize for best French film. Love it or hate it, you cannot feign indifference to Blue is the Warmest Colour—one of the most controversial films of 2013.Coming back to the rest of the festival, there are plenty of disorders still going on as it is just the third da y of the event.The organisers initially announced that the audience would not be allowed once the screening began. This resulted in long queues in advance. But the announcement could not stop the enthusiastic volunteers from shining their strong flashlights from their highend mobile phones into the eyes of the audiences while escorting hordes of loud latecomers into the auditorium. The consequent disruption and chaos can be imagined.---Nirmala Ravindran