Punjab Newspaper

A US-based company, Eyedea Productions, engaged in the production of TV and film programmes for the South Asian community settled in North America and Canada, has sent an offer to Dr Gurmeet Singh Maan, Head of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Punjabi University, Patiala to produce series of documentary films on Punjabi folk games. The Eyedea Productions has made this offer to Dr Maan after watching two of his films on Punjabi folk games, “Peecho” and “Geete”, which he directed for the Electronic Multi Media Research Centre (EMMRC), Punjabi University for telecasting on national channel of Doordarshan under the UGC’s Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC) programme.


In the letter of intent to Dr Maan, the President of the Eyedea Productions, Mr Harbaldeep Singh has said, “Recently, we came across two short films directed by you on the folk games of Punjab, Peecho and Geete . The way you have visually approached and treated these subjects in an
exclusive manner convinces us that these films have global audience. Also, these films are unique in a way that they not only depict hoary cultural heritage in a succinct manner but also show their relevance to the Punjabi women folk in a very subtle manner.” Eyedea Productions, Mr Singh continues, “would like to sign a letter of intent to produce 8-10 such like films of 25 minutes duration each for marketing and distribution to various TV channels. We at Eyedea Productions are very excited about this project and are looking forward to long mutual relationship.”
Dr Maan, who also holds the additional charges of Director, Public Relations and Director, Media Centre of Punjabi University, said that the two films, Peecho and Geete were assigned to him by the then Director of the EMMRC, Dr Yogesh Gambhir with the objective of “preserving the rich cultural heritage of Punjab, embedded and woven deeply in these vanishing folk games, for the future generations. Based on the scripts of noted Punjabi writer,Kirpal Kazak, these games were visualized and given directorial treatment from two angles–one, that these games led to the evolution of the modern games and second, that these were very intimately related to the real lives of Punjabi folk girls even till date,” he added. Symbolism, he said, has been used as a major tool to portray the quintessence underlying the philosophy of these two games. While accepting the offer, Dr Maan said that contrary to the requirements of the Eyedea Productions, the two films were of shorter duration. These films, therefore, will also have to be remade to come up with better quality on high-band digital cameras, he said.