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All I could see were exclamation points swimming before my eyes when I read that an Indian had recently paid $66,000 at an auction in New York for the belt Elvis Presley wore in a performance in Honolulu — at six times the auction estimate! This purchase by Neville Tuli, who runs an auction house, seemed a folie de grandeur, a nawabi gesture that made it to the pages of the international press. Tuli, who runs Osian, has had a chequered, if controversial career, as an art promoter and auctioneer.

It all clicked into place when I saw the two consecutive exhibitions from Osian’s Archives at the Visual Arts Gallery in New Delhi.

The first had memorabilia from world cinema (including Francis Ford Coppola’s letters to Marlon Brando and actor Val Kilmer’s gift of an African figure to Brando). And, the second, a cogently put together exhibition of Asian art and artifacts with several masterpieces of Asian art: the acquisitive Tuli had also bought 16th century Samurai armour and some Thangkas from Nepal. The hierarchy-busting exhibition also had artifacts of popular and visual culture, including some amazing old Japanese posters of Western films and Asian and Indian travel posters, as well as paintings by early and mid-20th century sub-continental artists like George Keyt, A R Chugtai and Chittaprosad.

It could so easily have been an inchoate mess, this juxtaposition of the “high” art of antiques and the fine arts with the so-called “low” art of film posters, lobby cards and film trivia. Happily, the opposite has happened; the two shows demonstrate that the different disciplines feed off and into each other — and they all grow together. The boundaries between art, design, sculpture, photography and painting tend to blur in films. Obviously, this was the raison d’etre of the exhibitions. They have been timed to coincide with, rather to usher in, the 8th Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian Cinema that begins next week in New Delhi.

The key word is Asian. And it was one smart idea that the film festival’s creator and director Aruna Vasudev had of focusing on Asian cinema. The once vibrant government-run International Film Festival, now permanently berthed in Goa and modelled after the Cannes and Venice festivals had grown unwieldy — andtoothless. It was even forced to drop its competition section some years ago after the chairman of the jury at the time, the late director Lindsay Anderson, publicly declared that there was no entry worthy of the Golden Peacock.

Today Osian’s Cinefan has emerged as the biggest film festival in India, growing in size and stature as many of the assorted state government international film festivals dwindle and totter, tripped by bureaucratic red tape and political interference. A film festival has to be run by those passionate about cinema, those who realise its significance both as the seventh art and as a goldmine for sociologists and other interpreters of the pulse and zeitgeist of our part of the world.

The festival has grown over the years: there are two competitions (Asian and Indian) and a section called Arabesque to showcase an increasingly vibrant Arab cinema, amongst a clutch of other categories. However, equally interesting are the panel discussions, debates and seminars to talk about the movies, film writing, film criticism and the future of cinema in the rapidly changing world of the media. ‘Whither Indian cinema’ will undoubtedly be a heated subject of discussion. India produces more films than any other country yet an Indian film seldom makes it to the international film festivals.

Cinefan also plans to show a selection of 11 films on Buddhism — The Middle Path -— to coincide with the 2,550th birth anniversary of the Buddha. And if there is one thread running through Asia is Buddhism. The oldest film being screened in this section is The Light of Asia (Prem Sanyas), made in 1925 for Bombay Talkies by German director Franz Osten. And clever, clever: the Masterpieces of Asian art Exhibition has marvellous stills from the film.

It all ties up. Apparently the entire complex of Siri Fort will be transformed into a museum of world cinema, and one of the exhibitions is, Dancing Doorway: from Elvis Presley to Shammi Kapoor.

And yes, don’t go green with envy Mumbai. Next year, you will probably have your own Cinefan. As for all the memorabilia, it will soon find a home in an old
Mumbai cinema theatre bought by Osian’s.

Email: jain_madhu@hotmail.com