Mother Teresa film festival opens, uncertainty looms

The four-day Mother Teresa International Film Festival began today, but uncertainty clouded it after the West Bengal government cancelled the booking for the auditorium where it is being screened for the second half on the third day.

Director of the festival, Sunil Lucas, said that he received a handwritten letter from Nilanjan Chatterjee, the director of the state-run cultural complex, Nandan, stating that booking for the Nandan-I auditorium had been cancelled for the second half on Saturday in the interest of running commercial shows.

Stating that no specific reason was cited for the cancellation of the auditorium, Lucas said, "the state government appears to be insensitive to Mother Teresa's birth centenary celebration and it is sad that inmates of Mother's Premdan and Sishu Bhavan's children will be deprived of seeing films on the Mother scheduled in the second half on Saturday."

Lucas said, "I'm in a fix on what to do now when the programmes have been finalised. It's a great problem that we will have to return the auditorium on the second half of Saturday. Does it augur well for the state government?"

Nandan's director, however, said that three days had been sanctioned for holding the film festival and its authorities had been informed about the screening of commercial shows in the second half on Saturday.

The four-day festival was to have had 50 screenings of 15 films from the US, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Japan and India.

Among the films were two features: In the Name of God's Poor starring Charlie Chaplin's daughter Geraldine as Mother Teresa and Madre Teresa in which celebrated actor Olivia Hussey plays the nun.

Though the notification of the screening of the films on all four days was initially put up at Nandan, it was later removed.

Earlier, Missionaries of Charity Superior-General Sr Prema declared the festival open which began with 'Mother Teresa,' a 82 minute documentary made in 1986 by two sisters, Ann and Jeanette Petrie, of the US.

Shot in 24 locations spanning 10 countries in five continents, the film is seen as a definitive work on the Nobel Laureate nun.

"When I came to India to make the film, I wanted to keep God out of it. In course of making it, I had to change my idea. I found it was impossible to separate Mother Teresa from God," Jeanette Petrie said while introducing the film.

Fr CM Paul, director of the first MTIFF in 2003, said that the film did not feature at the festival then. "I tried to get it, but somehow, I couldn't. I am glad that Mother's admirers will be able to see it now."

Lucas said that after closing here on August 29, the festival would travel to Guwahati, Shillong, Imphal, Agartala, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Indore, Ahmedabad, Udaipur and some other parts of the country.

It would also travel later to Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, the Phillippines and Nepal, he said.

Church dignitaries like cardinal Telesphore Toppo, Archbishop of Kolkata Lucas Sircar and president of Catholic news organisation SIGNIS Fr Vincent Chinnadurai were present at the festival organised in collaboration with the MoC, the Unesco and the Catholic Relief Service.

In another development, the BBC, after some initial feet-dragging, has agreed to lend the first-ever documentary on Mother, Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge.

Lucas, the director of MTIFF, 2010, said the film had been accommodated in the screening schedule.