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.