Necab Matinee - March 28th 2009

The second event by NECAB Matinee was held on 29th March. Two movies, Gulabi Talkies directed by Girish Kasaravalli and Adayalangal directed by MG Sasi were screened. The program started off with a welcome speech by our President, Sahasranam. This was followed by the screening of Gulabi Talkies. Girish Kasaravalli was gracious enough to attend the event and Prakash Bare introduced him to the audience after the screening was over. Girish provided a lot of insights into the world of progressive cinema and the challenges faced by the makers of such movies. We then moved on to Adayalangal. MG Sasi provided a short introduction before the movie about Nandanar and his life. Adayalangal is inspired by the life and works of Nandanar. This is Sasi’s first movie and it has already won him the State Award for the best movie against stiff competition from stalwarts like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, KP Kumaran and Shayamaprasad. This is a movie that is set in 1944 and handles a subject – extreme poverty and hunger – that is relatively unfamiliar to today’s average Malayali. We had a Q&A session with Sasi as well and that was also quite interesting. Sasi’s passion for his cinema and his ideology came through very strongly. He spoke about how he believes that every human has three types of hunger – the hunger for food, the hunger for love and the hunger for one’s identity. Adayalangal brings this out very beautifully and ultimately establishes man’s ability to triumph over hardships. It is a movie that holds out a lot of hope while forcing us to acknowledge the realities of hunger and poverty. NECAB is happy to have been able to bring such great movies and their Directors to this audience. Axis Bank was a sponsor for the event and Subex provided the auditorium and the refreshments. We appreciate their support.