SPOOFHMANIA – India’s film festival on spoofs & parodies sees the light of the day on 25th Nov at SiriFort Auditorium.
Six days of non-stop entertainment, laughter and sheer craziness was celebrated across multiple venues in New Delhi. The festival also held stand-up comedy acts, interactions with ‘Ministers of Spoof’ with an exhibition containing quirky, spoofy artwork attended by eminent personalities from the industry. SpoofhMania aims to be the World’s largest spoof film festival in India to bring the best spoof & parody work in the mainstream and provides a common platform where all ‘spoofers’ & spoof-lovers could converge.
Filmbooth, a Delhi-based organization promoting spaces and platforms for short film makers and film enthusiasts, has successfully executed SPOOFHMANIA – a film festival to celebrate creativity in humour and entertainment through spoofs and Parodies. This ‘first of its kinds’ international festival was celebrated over a period of 6 days starting with preview spoof film screenings during 20th – 24th November at multiple venues such as Epicentre, Kunzum Cafe, The Pint Room, Iron Curtain, Whats’up Bharat, culminating into the Grand Finale on 25th November at Siri Fort Auditorium.
As promised, Spoofhmania was opened to a laughter riot with Jaspal Bhatti’s ‘Flop Show’. “The festival would not have been incomplete without the inclusion of the epic, comedy show of the 90’s”, says the festival organizer, Gaurav Raturi. “There was no better way that we could have paid a tribute to the master of Indian comedy.” The long day spoof festival showcased movies like ‘Gods must be crazy’, 1980s epic comedy of absurd proportions’, directed by Jamie Uys, when spoof as a genre was still an unknown territory. The highlight of the festival was ‘Malegaon ke Sholay’, India’s first spoof film on the famous Ramesh Sippy’s blockbuster Bollywood film ‘Sholay’.
In addition to the showcasing of the best spoof films, there was also a showcase of short-films received through All-India competition entries. The first prize for the best short film went to Creamerica – An allegory of the Common Man’s invisibility in modern society with spoofy takes on James Bond and CID. Delhi based filmmakers” Subhashani, Vinmay and Varoon Anand” film won the award for Best Short Film in 30 Minutes category and Mumbai Based filmmaker “ Sagar Kadam “ won the award for best Short Film under 5 minutes for his animated film “ Lubdhanam Cora- Greedy Thief. The Award for Best Spoofy artwork went to “ Sangram Soni” for his spoof of the recent Gangs of Wasseypur – with Gangs of Rasoipur.
There was also a spoof photo booth with interesting props at the festival that gave audiences a chance to let their wacky self out and get them clicked. A large number of people thronged the booth and gave an entirely different meaning to the crazy self.
There were also interactions between the Malegaon ka Amitabh ‘Irfaan’ and Malegaon ka Gabbar ‘ Shafique’ at the festival who shared their valuable experiences and instances during the making of the film. A lesser known town in the country, Malegaon has produced some interesting comedies and spoofs without having the finances like those from Bollywood which is hardly a deterrent to their spirits and passion for films.
Sprucing up the spirit, there were also sessions by spoof creators from Viral Fever.com about the state of Indian spoof and how there is a growing number of audiences for this genre. SpoofhMania also had a ‘Spoof Parliament’ session presided over by a Cabinet of Ministers of Spoofs – a team of highly creative & successful personalities known to corporate India and hailing from varied backgrounds such as filmmaking, advertising, cartooning, media etc, including Mr. Josy Paul – Chairman & Chief Creative Officer, BBDO India, RJ Naved – RJ from Radio Mirchi.
The evening ended on a high note by the deadly Trio “ the TRIDEV “ of Indian Comedy, Sanjay Rajoura, Maheep Singh & Amit Tandon. Audiences did not stop laughing even after the grand finale came to an end with much success and aplomb. Filmbooth intends to set up Spoofhmania as an annual film festival which showcases the diversity in humour by way ofcrazy, lunatic, irreverent art, made by highly motivated artists and enthusiasts who are waiting to be heard. With a wide theme base, Spoofhmania promises “originality” & sidesplitting humour in diverse shapes & colors. Sharing his candid views on this big occasion,
Gaurav Raturi, Co-founder Filmbooth says “Spoofhmania is the ultimate place for all fun-lovers. It promises to be a fully power- packed festival with a host of enjoyable activities planned for all the six days. Leaving the best for the last, we intend to build-up the festival by taking it to different venues, different audience and some very interesting screenings. The Grand Finale is an entity in itself; we were thrilled to see some fantastic films, comedy acts, discussions & exchange to show the funnier & lighter side of life. We hope our audience enjoys this experience as much as we did putting it together.” Adding to the enthusiasm,
Mohak Mathur, Co-founder Filmbooth says “Spoofhmania is one of our most awaited entities; More than our audience, we are thrilled that’s its finally seeing the light of day. We have put in a lot of hardwork in gathering the generous support from people world over, through crowdfunding & crowdsourcing campaigns, and we are delighted to report that the results have far exceeded our expectations. We are receiving very positive feedback from supporters & enthusiasts from across geographies, from the participating filmmakers and other artists. Going forward, we want to build on this great start we have got this year, and we intend to create the most unique & entertaining platform in the world where all spoof & parody lovers can gather every year.” SpoofhMania 2013 will be more crazy , whacky and bigger.