FICCI FRAMES 2013: Provoking Mainstream entertainment to become socially responsible

The ongoing 14th chapter of Asia’s foremost Conclave on Media & Entertainment – FICCI FRAMES, today hosted a session on ‘Media and Entertainment: Unleashing the power of Social and Economic change’.

The big names who participated in the panel discusion included leading filmmakers Mahesh Bhatt and Goutam Ghose; the graceful actor Kiron Joneja; Jonathan Taplin, Director, Annenbern Centre for Innovation, Director, University of South California School of Communication & Journalism and Colin Maclay, MD, Berkman Centre for Internet & Society, Harvard University. The panel discussion was  moderated by Sandra De Castro, Director, Hollywood Health & Society.

Sandra De Castro opened the session by unleashing an unpcoming project ‘The Third Eye’, lead by Mahesh Bhatt, and which aims to support the creative communities of the media and entertainment industries of India with timely facts on key health, gender, legal and social issues. The aim is to report information in the fictional shows and films more accurately and thereby make entertainment more socially responsible.

Mahesh Bhatt, who is known for making off-beat and heartrending films sees potential in the entire idea of blending socio economic issues with cinema. Appreciative of organisations like Hollywood Health & Society that empowers society, he said “We come from a culture that becomes a cruch to the needy however the long term goal should be to make the handicapped independant. Cinema ignites passion and gives the society a direction, which can thereby empower people in bringing about a change,”

Goutam Ghose agreed with Mahesh Bhatt and called India a place of composite culture. “Cinema gives us creative ideas to showcase the culture, with the aim of bringing peace and harmony in the society”.

Kiron Joneja picked up women health issue as a topic and said “There has been very rare cases of bringing up women health issues in the Indian Cinema till date. However, if organisations like Sandra’s share more information on such issue if we can manage to impart knowledge without disturbing the mainstream cinema, it will be great.”