VIBGYOR
Short & Documentary Film Festival

From Febuary22-25, 2006, we organized the first edition of VIBGYOR Short & Documentary Film Festival at Trichur. It was a joint venture of various media collectives in India. The following is the concept note of VIBGYOR that I wrote for our Festival Book. I liked it and thought it could be my second blog.

Stories of colours have been told and re-told in many different ways in every culture around the world. Anywhere, any time, if one colour is considered superior to another, it has to be taken as a matter of perception, a defective one, I should say. The Chaturvarnya theory in India is just another story, just another inadequate attempt to categorize and label human beings to the extent of branding someone or something bad or good.

Why only four colours? Why not seven, matching the colours of the rainbow? Gradations of the so called primary, secondary, tertiary colours are only our making; mix the colours as you like and go for all possible permutations and combinations. Perfect purity is a bore; `Pure Chutney’ is an illusion. We’re all mixed, hybrid. Being hybrid is not a shame. Mestizo, the mixed, is the preferred self-description among the Hispanics of Latin America and the Caribbean Islands.

For me, the co-existence of differences is the most beautiful thing I can ever imagine. I’m blessed and enriched by my sisters and brothers who are different from me and who choose to be different from me. I consider VIBGYOR as an all inclusive spectrum of all possibly imaginable colours, all possibly thinkable thoughts and theories, ideas and ideologies and creeds.

This doesn’t mean that VIBGYOR is apolitical or neutral. Cinema, or any artistic endeavor, can ever afford to be apolitical. We at the VIBGYOR festival do take an unmistakable political stand, one which doesn’t belong to any single political party or movement. It’s a stand against any attempt at standardization and conformity in life, art, religion, anywhere.

VIBGYOR is a fiesta where anyone with a free and open mind can come together--artists, academicians, activists, students--anyone. All are welcome to indulge in this unending celebration of our co-existence in the broader cosmic sense.

HALF-BAKED LIVES

My name is Benedict; my mother, father (he's no more) and my friends call me Benny. To pretend that I'm somebody important, at some point in life I combined both my names and now I'm known (if at all) as `Benny Benedict'.

My intimate friends call me many other names. I'm important to them, they are very imporant to me; so my friends don't care what my real name is or what my titles are.

Today, March 19, 2006, I decided to create my blog. I know I'm not yet ready. I like to write, but I write longer and deeper only when I know that Time is waiting for me; but rarely does it happen as I'm always on the move, doing many things at a time and leaving almost everything incomplete.

I don't know how to describe myself. Computers have made my self-description easier with the `foward slash'(/). At no point do I have a complete answer to the eternal introspection "Who am I?" So I put myself in paranthesis, I bracket my self-definition.

I happen to be from Trichur, Kerala, India. I happen to be a catholic priest, working full time in media. Yes, happen to be......anything can change!

I have already said too many things about me, unintentionally: that I'm a man on the move (el pasajero= traveler, in Spanish), that I'm a priest and I'm active in media. I also said I leave things incomplete. If ever I write my autobiography I will title it `Half-Baked Life/ves'. This might be the best description about myself. I have lived my life/ves half-baked and continue to SERVE my life/ves to others `half-baked'. Take my life/ves or throw it/them away.

Or TRY to complete it/them....welcome!