The third edition of Delhi International Film Festival will showcase over 250 films. The focus will be on films from the subcontinent. Shrabasti Mallik reports
There is no dearth of options here for someone who follows world cinema religiously. In the last one year, many international filmmakers have visited the city to showcase their films and fests have been organised. Get ready for some more, claim the organisers of Delhi International Film Festival. The third edition of the festival that showcases over 250 films kickstarted over the weekend.
This year the festival organisers had received more than 1,300 international movie entries which they had to cut short to 250. This huge participation comes as no surprise given that Delhi is increasingly becoming popular as a movie destination. “Getting permission to shoot a movie in Delhi has always been easy. One just needs to drop a letter at the NDMC and we make sure that the shoot is completed without any disturbance,” said Ramkishore Parcha, chairman NDMC.
International film directors find Delhi a suitable platform. “Film festivals are generally organised to screen documentaries and films for a certain section of the audience. Delhi is capable of providing an unparallel exposure to any film. That is why more international directors are keen to bring their films here,” said filmmaker Subhash Ghai. The movies that are shortlisted this year come with the backing of some award from a prestigious festival. “Some of them are even Oscar nominated. We will screen Glow of the Firefly, a movie from Bangladesh. The director, Khalid Mahmood Mithu has recently been nominated for the Oscar awards,” Ghai added.
The festival will also organise a seminar which will aim to promote the Capital as an ideal place for film shoots. “We are in discussion with the government to lend us government run theatres. So that movies which do not see the light of the day and which are restricted to film festivals can be screened,” said Satish Upadhyay, Delhi BJP president. He also added that the government is extending a helping hand to Hunerkada College of Visual and Performing Arts, Pakistan, so that the short films and documentaries that are made there get a chance to be screened here. “There are around 50 films from Pakistan this time. We could choose 20,” he pointed out.
This year, the festival will be focussing on movies from Pakistan and Bangladesh and will end with the screening of Pakistani movie Zinda Bhaag. “There is also Hotal, a psycho-thriller, which is called Pakistan’s first Bollywood film directed by Khalid Hasan Khan. It will be the Indian premiere of the movie and the director will also be here,” added Satish.
In the week-long festival, visitors and audience can catch some of the best movies and short films which have been divided into several categories — world cinema, Indian showcase, cinema across the border, NRI cinema, student and short films, documentaries, animation and green films. There will also be several workshops by experts and discussions on a range of topics from wildlife photography and filmmaking. A seminar on transgender and cinema will also be organised and a film on wrestling will be screened.
On the opening day of the festival, an animation short film titled The Sun and the Wind, inspired by a Greek Aesop’s fable, kept the audience entertained. Although the movie narrative was in German, there were English subtitles for the Indian viewers. The film depicted a woman walking carefree in the fields. She was clueless about what was going to happen to her when the sun and the wind started to fight over their superiority. They both attempted to undress her using their strongest assets. Wind used its force while the sun used its warmth. The 10-minute film was accompanied with the poetry of famous German poet Georgios Drosinis.