On the first day of college, every BMM student in SIES Nerul looks forward to a lot of things. There is a new and unexplored world just in front of them, and they can’t wait to dive right in. After going through the list of the year’s events, first year students are already setting dates in their calendars and making plans with their newly formed friends. But there’s something the first years don’t quite know anything about. It’s being talked about by all their seniors, but nobody tells them what it is. They see people sitting together in groups, exchanging excited whispers and after a few instances of casual eavesdropping; a simple word remains imprinted in their minds : Frames.
Over the past 14 years, Frames Film Festival has been a source of joy and enthusiasm to hundreds of college students as well as thousands of amateur filmmakers. Today, it stands as an international platform for budding film enthusiasts to showcase their talent, and embrace the future of world cinema. Since the beginning, Frames has shown tremendous growth in nature of its reach, its impact and the quality of movies it puts out. Celebrities like Mahesh Bhatt, Madhur Bhandarkar, Nitya Mehra and Anurag Kashyab are few among many to attend and judge the movies screened at Frames.
Looking at the heights reached by a student organised festival, it is difficult to imagine that Frames had a very humble origin. It was merely a small project set up by 5 passionate students of mass media, looking for a place to play with their creativity, give space to their imagination and bring people together for a cause that would be both entertaining and thought provoking for all. These students demanded a festival for the BMM department from the SIES management. Initially met with disdain and doubt, they continued to make efforts for their vision. These efforts gave way to create the first departmental fest in SIES Nerul. And here we are, after all these years, ever expanding beyond their wildest dreams.
Frames has been known to give to its audience, an emotion quite undefined. It’s this weird mixture of happiness combined with pride and togetherness. It’s what gets filmmakers to come and attend this festival from wherever they may be. To see their work displayed in front of their role models in the industry, in front of thousands of people of all ages who applaud and commend their efforts. To be in awe of the work put forward by people just like them, people who have the ability to recreate their vision on film, in the most beautiful manner. Prominent personalities that attend Frames have often commented upon how happy it makes them to see such incredible young talent to lead the future of the film industry, and how content they are to pass it down onto such capable minds of phenomenal creativity.
Everything that Frames is, everything that it has done would never have been achieved without the dedication and passion of media students of SIES. Frames is an outlet for them to explore new avenues and take chances. These students work together in harmony, being committed and clear towards their common goal. Their work clearly reflects the kind of love they have for Frames, and this warmth shines through. Everybody works hard for long and arduous months, pushing their limits and testing their capabilities. They grow through their work, they learn and they innovate. Around 200 people, all with different wavelengths, contributing selflessly to create and uphold one platform.
Frames has constantly been pushing its boundaries and looking for new ways to carve a niche in its effect on the audience and as a stage for fresh talent. In its 15th edition, we plan on going above and beyond to make your experience memorable. You’ll go through every emotion, feeling all the feels. Whether you’re an artist with a camera, or just a person with a tub of popcorn and movie criticisms, we’d love to see you there.

"The power of thought, of idea, is incommensurable, is immeasurable. The world is dominated by thought. " - Emile Coue.
For a filmmaker every thought is an opportunity. An opportunity to express himself, his feelings and put forth his point of view to the world. These thoughts are not restricted. He manifests his own world, that functions on rules that he creates. There are no boundaries, no concept of the 'illogical' and no concept of time.
Anyone can learn the rules of movie making. You could play around with your camera and learn the right angles for shooting, the plays with lighting and all the other tricks of the trade with the sole aim of doing business . But it is the emotion and the feeling that makes a film impactful.The feeling of Meraki, where we do something with our soul, creativity and love. When we put something of ourselves into what we're doing.
As a movie takes shape a filmmaker will inevitably face obstacles. He will be challenged by other people's ideas and opinions, technical problems, and by the very fact that the work in front of him does not do justice to the original blueprint drawn up in his mind. It is upon him to find loopholes and bend rules to materialise his works of fiction in a way that he is happy with it . He will not receive satisfaction unless he potrays the characters and the scenes exactly as he perceives it to be. That feeling of gratification is invaluable.
" If my film succeeds in making one more man miserable, I have done my job." Woody Allen conveys all the emotions, the entire purpose and the process of forming a connection with the audience.
People are naturally different and diverse. They lead vastly different lives. In the inner circle of these people, there are a handful of indivuduals who see everybody around them as a unique story. Every human is a walking movie. People like this, view life itself from the point of view of a film reel. Every person who perceives life as a movie sequel with constantly evolving characters and sets , needs a platform to showcase his creativity, which is exactly what we at Frames aim to provide. The ability to construct a rhythm of emotions through a camera that translates an idea on the big screen is nothing short than an ability to change the world, one shot at a time.

Once upon a time, in a land far away; in the midst of the forest with a trail of bread crumbs to lead the way- stood a house made of candy with its own tale to narrate. If, just like me, you’ve been exposed to a plethora of ‘and they lived happily after’ fairy tales, you know just how the story of Hansel and Gretel unravels. First of the many stories that I read, it taught me skills that I believe are essential for surviving in this rather big bad world. For instance, if someone holds you captive and there’s a minuscule chance of survival, you strike from behind when they least expect it and if there’s an oversized oven..well you know how the story goes. Apart from the lessons in how to effectively put down your enemy, I also learned that their ingenuity was the sole contributor that determined their success.
Morals. Lessons learnt. That was the crux of most of these stories. It was essential that you extracted something that would benefit you in the long run. It was essential that your imagination wasn’t stifled and you had the liberty to come up with your own ideas about how you could have done things differently. It was essential that you grew.
Take a minute to construct a world of your own. Think about the kind of people you’d want there to be, the colour of the trees, if the sky would look like your coffee on a Sunday morning or if it’d be charred, would the birds chirp or would they howl like the wolves? You have the space to create your own reality. You’d be the captain of a ship that you could steer in any way, either through the rugged storm or through the ripples of a gentle wave. Much like what writing a story feels like. You’re surrounded by stories and tales everywhere you go. What’s brilliant about this concept is that they are continually changing your life, either one page or one scene at a time. Over the years, you expose your mind to an array of stories. Some of them are read, some of them seen and some of them experienced.
Some people like to take their coffee black while some like it with two scoops of sugar with an extra dash of cream; some of us prefer to read whilst some of us take pleasure in watching movies. What we receive from both these acts, remains the same. We become part of a journey that takes its time to give to us the essence of what awaits us at our destination.
In the end, we’re all stories.

India is a country of plurality, with people of numerous cultures, speaking hundreds of different languages and following multiple religions residing in the country. This kind of diversity is rarely found in any other country in the world. Keeping up with this diversity, Indian cinema too, all though usually only associated with Bollywood, has a number of regional film industries that produce over 1000 films each year. India annually produces the largest number of movies in the world.
The various Indian regional film industries have been producing films for many years but it is only recently that a lot of these regional industries have begun gaining recognition. These films are majorly content driven and relatable. Long gone are the days where the success of the film depended upon the “star-cast”. Indian cinema is no longer dominated by Khans or Kapoors, instead talented young filmmakers are taking the centre stage.
Currently in India, films in over 25 languages have been produced. The Bengali film industry has been predominant among regional Indian cinema with people like Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and new age directors like Rituparno Ghosh. Bengali cinema was infact a pioneer of parallel cinema in India. The Kannada and Tamil film industries are indeed still partially star driven but also are coming up with great content with films like Kaala starring superstar Rajnikanth, which was a brilliant story that highlighted a grave social issue like the ill treatment of people of lower castes in society. The Malayalam film industry too is getting international acclaim due to the films made by contemporary artists and directors like Vineeth Srinivasan and Anjali Menon.
Bhojpuri and Gujarati films have a huge audience and focus on stories that portray mythological, historical and political ideas. The Punjab film industry has undoubtedly given Bollywood its fair share of inspiration and artists. Ruponkumar Jyotiprasad Agarwala, a distinguished poet, playwright, composer and freedom fighter laid the foundation to Assamese cinema back in 1935. Closer to home, the Marathi film industry is gaining popularity, not only among Maharashtrians residing in the state but also internationally. Films like Court, Shwaas, Natsamrat and Sairat have been a huge success not only at the box-office but also with the critics.
In fact, Bollywood itself has continually taken inspiration from various regional films. A number of Bollywood films like Wanted, Kick, Dhadak, Bhoolbhulaiya etc are remakes of popular regional cinema. Films like Bahubali, Robot and Kabali have been dubbed into Hindi from Telugu and Tamil to cater to Bollywood’s audience. However the fact remains that all of these industries are still not getting the support and recognition that they require or deserve. Even though they have been receiving some backing from a few production houses and few Bollywood veterans like Madhuri Dixit and Priyanka Chopra, it is still not getting the spotlight it calls for. As a society it is important that we build our literature and arts as well as appreciate and encourage the upcoming talent. This regional cinema is a reflection of our society and therefore we must pay attention to the messages that they put forward to us through these movies to understand the situation of the various regions of our country.

For someone who is criticized for staying in her comfort zone, Kajol for sure has had an amazing Bollywood career. Unlike most of her fellow 90s competitors, Kajol still is relevant in the media and with time has evolved as a household name. The 5-time Filmfare award for the Best Actress winner started her career on a low note with the commercial failure Bekhudi. However, because of her amazing performance in the film, she was picked by director-duo Abbas-Mustan for their crime-thriller Baazigar, which became the first of many films where she shared the screen with Shah Rukh Khan. The movie turned out to be a critical as well as a commercial success since then Kajol never looked back.
Kajol soon became a mainstream media figure. However, unlike the fellow actresses of her time, Kajol had her own position in the film industry. It wasn't Raj alone who made DDLJ a constant favourite, it was Raj and Simran. It wasn't only Rahul's cool nature which made Kuch Kuch Hota Hai-an all time blockbuster, it was with Anjali's tomboy nature that the movie portrayed which made her lovable. Kajol didn't solely become an identity, she became a public figure with whom the likes of SRK and Karan Johar got recognized by. She brought in people's interest when the majority of mainstream movies simply focused on the male star.
Back in the 90s, Bollywood romantic movies usually involved the male star strutting and the actress simply being a damsel in distress. Kajol, redefined the position of women in Bollywood in an amazingly unique way and in the process discovered a new genre of mainstream actresses. She in her movies was neither an alpha-woman nor a bubbly-helpless girl. She too was an equal and important part of the story. This uniqueness of her personality made her the public figure she is today.
Kajol in her movies, interviews and public events became a personality which every Indian girl wanted to be. She got her own independent stance and unlike most women-led movies, she saw a happy ending. While her character was empowered, it was happy too. While she saw commercial success, she became an award-winning critical success too. While establishing herself as a simple public personality, she created her own unique identity.
In the day and age where Bollywood acknowledges the position and importance of female actors, Kajol stands as someone who gained respect and critical acclaim when no one seemed to be interested in the situation of female stars. She came out as the woman in a man's world.

From 1895 to 2018, the portrayal of homosexuality in movies has come a long way. In Hollywood, the first film to even introduce or experiment with this concept was the movie, The Gay Brothers (1895), where two men were shown to dance embracing each other - but the stigma around homosexuality that time was far less stringent as compared to the next few decades. Thanks to these less demanding criteria, in the film Wings (1927) where Jack kissed David, the film won the very first Best Picture Oscar.
Often times women were portrayed as the “villains” when having affairs with the same sex. Gay characters became a metaphor for anything outside the norm that society disliked at the time. But not all these characters were evil; some were portrayed as fragile and suicidal in nature too. In Rebel Without A Cause (1955) the protagonist, being a confused teen, is ostracized by his friends for his sexuality and is eventually killed. An example of a suicidal homosexual would be in The Children’s Hour where the lead hangs herself after allegations of being a lesbian. Apart from the sad endings that these films have in common, another similarity is that all these characters were taunted and criticized instead of being celebrated for their uniqueness. This is how Hollywood successfully led people to hate homosexuals.
This ensued the formation of the Gay Liberation Front in the 1970’s that brought about a sexual revolution, opening America’s eyes to the plight of homosexuality. The producers that time then went on to create movies and television series, dedicating those to the victim community. It was a great moment in the film industry as the then released films took huge leaps in the positive portrayal of homosexuals on-screen. But religious boycotts still stirred fear in the minds of the people in the 80’s. That was a comparatively short phase of distress, because after this, the LGBTQ community could be portrayed as good and normal human beings on-screen again. But people couldn’t see them being engaged romantically until Brokeback Mountain (2005) which presented the kind of true romance between two men who chose each other. The film went on to win 3 of 8 Oscars it was nominated for.
The “New Queer Cinema” of the current age, represents a new era of independency where often the films are written and directed by openly gay people. Drag characters have starred in many films in the 1990s like Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and The Birdcage(1996), both starring Robin Williams. Slowly, genuine love stories started appearing in the market to satisfy the now accepting palette of the audience with films like Monster (2003) where two lesbian lovers-turned-criminals had been at the wrong side of different situations, and Blue Is The Warmest Color (2013) that talks about amateur, young love between two young girls that leads to a relationship. These movies portrayed homosexuals to be just like anybody else and were a really important lesson for people who did not understand or accept homosexuality.
The one thing we need to learn from the struggle of this community in the industry is that, the portrayal of characters on different media platforms definitely affects the public's way of understanding and treating each other. Therefore we must thank all the influential writers and directors out there who’ve helped to bring about the current exposition of the community with multi-faceted characters, with their own depths, romantic characters, a voice and a pride.

Cinema as a term dictates the production of films as an art or industry. Furthermore, it paves the road for imagination to be brought into reality. The elements that act as the cement or rocks that help build the road are- director, actors, writers, cameraman, gazillion more things and most importantly - vision. It is that which brings all these elements together. Cinema in the 1800s meant - a single scene, about a minute long and they were- silent, which is nothing more than just pictures floating in front of the eyes that portrayed movements that never seemed to seep deeper. Once a while an orchestra would play to compensate for the lack of sound. Albeit today, Cinema has grown tremendously and not to mention the potency just keeps growing. Now, Cinema is not only about picturization, it reflects human nature and most importantly the unsaid side of it, the society and its ideologies, fantasies and nightmares and so much more. Rightly said by Satyajit Ray - “Cinema’s characteristic forte is its ability to capture and communicate the intimacies of the human mind”. Cinema as a concept is immensely diverse - it is distinguished not only by one’s imagination but by portrayal, which could be in the form of music, dance, characters, dialogues and more, viz. The Hindi film industry or as dearly called Bollywood has the forte to use music and dance to portray a certain sequence that distinctly exhibits the given emotion(s) -that could range from the death of a loved character or swaggy proposal by a roadside romeo, needless to mention are they equally entertaining. Time and space are only matters that don’t matter, but rather taken into account if and only when the need be. A crucial factor of Cinema is the audience. They are what the movies are made of and for (to a great extent, if not all of it). When a story is put forth the last thing that remains to be answered is how the audience tend to perceive it. Does the story relate to them in some way? Did it leave a mark? Most importantly, was it entertaining or at least enjoyable? All of it decides the future of Cinema, the films to be made, the stories to be told. If the audience does not prefer a certain kind of story or the way of storytelling, it is unlikely that it’ll be explored extensively. On the other hand, if a story is accepted and enjoyed duly, it becomes Cinema, for it tends to stay as a site of exploration for other filmmakers to construct and for generations of audience to perceive it their-way. Last but not the least, Cinema becomes an abode for the mind to explore and to create, it speaks of the untold that which we fear, that which we are ashamed to confront, that which make the butterflies go wild in our belly, that makes us weep, laugh, tremble with fear, shock and surprise -- filled with overwhelming emotions but at the end leaving us empty for a chapter has come to its end. But, the assurance remains -another one is to begin. “Great cinema is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to”. -Willem Dafoe.