by Subhash K Jha

The ongoing Goan glamour jamboree may have its share of glitches and good-ups. But some portions of this year's festival are definitely commendable.

High on the wow list was the one-hour long debate on Monday in the 'Masters Class' section where Madhur Bhandarkar took the stage to cross (s)words with French filmmaker Alain Corneau on the subject, 'Is it necessary to entertain while I create?....Liberties and constraints of filmmaking.'

Though Corneau who came into the limelight in 2003 with his angst-laden psycho-drama 'Fear & Trembling' about a Belgian woman grappling with entrepeneurship in Japan, was surprisingly fluent and articulate in English, it was Madhur who took the stage by storm with his rousing rhetorics.

Page 3 which will be screened in the panorama section seems to have done his selfconfidence a world of good.

"I don't know about that," he laughs. "But I seriously feel cinema needs to entertain and get enough audiences interested. Otherwise filmmakers like us have no money to go on making films."

Madhur was struck by the similarities between French and Bollywod cinema.

"The commercial cinema faces the same crisis of identity in France . Stars dictate the nature and fate of a film. But after a week of release French films are on their own...just like ours. Globally we need to create a system of filmmaking where the director is truly at the helm and not a victim of the star system," says Madhur who was surprised that the French had not only heard about Page 3 but also his Chandni Bar.

"I was asked why I made some of my commercial films. I told them we all have to do both kinds of films to survive...I certainly don't disown my more commercial films. They're part of my growth as a filmmaker."