The 2006 Bite the Mango festival opens with the Gala UK Premiere of Little Box of Sweets. This is the debut feature of Meneka Das whose short film The Audition kicked off Bite the Mango in 2003 - a sure sign that in Bradford small things can turn into very big things. Meneka will be in Bradford for the premiere together with the film's producer Sheena Das.  | | The gala film - Little Box of Sweets |
Often foreign language films do not attract a particularly big audience - it's all too easy to think the whole world should speak English - but festival director Adeni Rutter feels sure this year's Bite the Mango has something for everyone: "World cinema is a very broad subject but with Bite the Mango there's a niche market. These are films whose influences are more from the equatorial regions of the world - Africa, South Asia, the Far East and Central America. They are not going to be far from intelligible for their viewers. There's no point putting on films that people are going to struggle to enjoy or to watch." There's comedy: "We have a comedy called Halal Harry which is a view of westernised Muslims from a Muslim's point of view even though there are religious zealot types who don't want to integrate, and use the excuse of their religion to oppose integration, but the film highlights in a humorous way cross-cultural relationships, understanding and appreciating each other's differences. | "There's no point putting on films people are going to struggle to enjoy or watch." | | Adeni Rutter, festival director, Bite the Mango |
"Another comedy, Nina's Heavenly Delights, is based on the same sort of principle. It's a different type of relationship but it's to show people are human beings and they just live the way they live but they do try to integrate in their own way." Asked what he thinks will be the most popular film in the festival Adeni believes that's very much down to personal taste: "If it was me I'd watch New Police Story because I'm a Jackie Chan fan. This new film is not a sequel to the other Police Story films. It's a fresh start but it has the same principles as the others - Jackie Chan, super cop, has his team killed and reaps revenge in his own kung-fu style without the effects of CGI and wires."  | | Something different for Jackie Chan? |
But Bite the Mango also has its serious side. Adeni adds: "We have some seminars which focus on faith in films and representations of Muslims in the media and how all these things can influence your filmmaking as well as highlighting what's going on in the world and the perception of Islam in the world. That's followed by a screening of Al-Ghazali: The Alchemist of Happiness which is based on the story of a 12th century Islamic teacher who through his own struggle with religion realised how to achieve peace and the film shows there is a way to achieve peace in the world and appreciate people's differences." Each year Bite the Mango focuses on cinema from one particular country and as director of the festival Adeni gets to choose. This year it's Singapore. Adeni explains: "It's a burgeoning film industry and it's quite a young industry. It's about 12-years-old but it's growing. It's getting noticed - they were the only Asian country invited to Cannes to showcase their films this year. I was born in Singapore so that's a really good reason to share the films of my home country with the audience." How does Adeni think films from Singapore will go down in Bradford? "It's an acquired taste. There are several languages in Singapore. The first language is English but they also have this language called Singlish. It's so ungrammatically incorrect you still need subtitles to understand what they are saying unless, like my mother, you've grown up with it. What they do is make light of their situation and the politics of independence, that sort of thing."  | | A taste of Singapore! |
Adeni has certainly enjoyed his first experience of being a film festival director: "You learn so much. It gives you so many ideas and you do different things. It's such a vast subject. It's not just the films themselves, it's everything behind the films." This year Bite the Mango also features an industry weekend for film professionals in the Yorkshire region. Adeni says: "The interest we've had gives us more ideas of what we can do in the future. Also it helps us to look for the next country to focus on. You want something special, something different. There's just so much you can do and you learn what doesn't work from your own mistakes." Adeni also hopes some of the filmmakers attending Bite the Mango will take something of Bradford away from the festival with them: "Bradford is renowned for being a location for films like Billy Liar but there is no reason why we can't use it as a location again. Who knows? Filmmakers coming to Bite the Mango might take an interest in Bradford." Bite the Mango is at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television from September 22nd to September 28th 2006. | 
