Goa: At Iffi screening for visually-impaired, filmmaker watches movie blindfolded

PANAJI: It was a special screening for visually-challenged persons at Iffi, but when it turned out that the 70% full theatre had only 20-25 partially- or fully visually-impaired persons, state disabilities commission secretary Taha Haaziq suggested that the others wear a blindfold, so they can experience the film like their disabled fellow-movie watchers.
Mumbai filmmaker Yatheesh Nair accepted the blindfold, and sat with it through the screening, which was part of the 'divyangjan' or accessible film section at the festival. The film, 'The Storyteller', is based on a Satyajit Ray story.
Only around 10% of the film had audio descriptions, the rest of the film was left as it is,” Nair said. “Watching the film with the blindfold, I cannot say that my experience was exactly the same, as I have reference point like when someone speaks of ‘red’. Someone who is born visually impaired may not have this reference. But the experience was a good start.” Nair added that the gap is still huge between the facilities available and those that need to be made available for the disabled. “But this kind of start at Iffi definitely helps.
We don’t experience it fully as we do with the blindfold, but at least we can realise what they go through,” said Nair, who visits Iffi every year but was part of the accessible screening section for the first time. He was drawn to the screening after being told about the initiative by a friend. Haaziq said that they are looking at a bright future where no one should think whether the movie is audiodescribed. Ravinder Bhakar, managing director of the National Films Development Corporation (NFDC), said the Divyangjan section will see dedicated screenings for specially-abled audience organised keeping in mind their accessibility needs. Apart from ‘The Storyteller’, Richard Attenborough’s Oscar winning Gandhi has also been audiovisually equipped with embedded audio descriptions and subtitles for screening at Iffi this year.
‘The Storyteller’, directed by Ananth Narayan Mahadevan is about Tarini Ranjan Bandhopadhyay, a maverick storyteller, notorious for not sticking to one job, having switched 32 jobs in his working career. It is based on Satyajit Ray’s story ‘Golpo Boliy Tarini Khuro’.