Heidi comes to Orange City

Preeti Atulkar, Times of India

Image from The Hindu

In a bid to celebrate 70 years of friendship between Switzerland and India, a movie bus has been launched by embassy of Switzerland in collaboration with the Consulate General, Mumbai. Touring all over India, the movie bus is equipped with a projector, screen and sound system, and it arrived in Nagpur with a fanfare. As part of the event, Swiss films on wheels, a popular children’s film Heidi was screened at the South Central Zone Cultural Centre.

Public diplomacy [JB emphasis] officer, consulate general of Switzerland (Mumbai) Maitreyee Shirolkar informed, “Through these screenings, we intend to spread the message of friendship, understanding, respect and inclusiveness.”

The evening saw quite a few youngsters in attendance along with school children and their parents. Just before the screening, we caught up with a young parent Shama Bhiwapurkar, who said, “As a child, I had watched the animated version of Heidi. In fact, I wanted to show it to my daughter but couldn’t find the English version anywhere. But now she can watch the feature film at least. And, I’m all excited to revisit my childhood.”

The event kicked off with the vice consul, Christoph Kellar’s interaction with the audience. Decked up in a traditional kurta-pyjama, he gave a few insights about Switzerland. Kellar said, “It is a story full of emotions. It veers around the relationship between a child and her grandparent. I’m happy with the response in Nagpur and our next destination is Bhopal.”

Finally, the movie began and the audience were all glued to the seats. After the screening, entrepreneur Adwait Welankar, who came along his son, said, “Though my son is only 8, I had explained the gist of the film to him before coming for the screening. And I’m glad that he loved it. My only concern is that people in Nagpur do not turn up in large numbers for such programmes. Blame it on our so-called image of being culturally behind or on the lack of awareness about such events, the situation is really disappointing.”

Echoing similar sentiments, one of the organisers, Sameer Nafde said, “It's not every day that you get to watch a Swiss film. So, we paid extra attention to the promotions this time to make the right kind of buzz.”