UNEQUIVOCAL FILMS MAKING THEIR MARKS TO COMPETE AT THE 14TH IDSFFK

News Desk

23 August 2022 11:00 PM

A total of 69 films including 28 short fiction, 13 long and18 short docus and 10 Campus films will be striking their feasts in the International Documentary and Short Film Festival, in three categories. The competitive package encompasses a wide array of films flung from all over the country with its own political positions, internal conflicts and the less familiar lenses of filmmakers from the North Eastern states, thus enriching the Khasi cultural explorations in the film industry. The list also consists of 4 silent documentaries and 6 Malayalam documentaries.

As Jeyachandra Hashmi Kumaresan’s Sweet Biriyani explores the less observed bosoms of the everyday lives and thoughts of food delivery agents, it also tilts our focus on the experiences of the underprivileged. Narrating the pandemic lives on the borders, Meghalayan Filmmaker Pradip Kurbah’s Path depicts a love story shot in monochrome. Restoration of culture and landscapes is yet another overriding theme in James Khangenbam’s debut Meriam-The Fireline which had also made its entry to the International Nature Film Festival in Finland, Miriam Chandy Menacherry’s The Leopard’s Tribe and Farha Khatun’s Ripples Under The Skin.

Varun Grover’s controversial film Kiss which discusses the political hollowness of the censor board, striking down intimate scenes from the film will also be screened in the short fiction category.

Night Time in Small Town India, shot through 14 lenses of mostly women from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jharkhand stands apart in its real and raw capturing of time and space. Produced by the collaboration of Third Eye and Digital Educators, the film is a breakthrough in its pedagogical attempt as well as in the discourse of female and male gazes as it explores the answers of who is being watched and by whom. Danish Renzu’s The good news which narrates the camaraderie of two young women and Muntaha Amin’s Siege in the Air, placing women’s narratives in the forefront are two documentaries from Kashmir. Monesh B’s The Castless Collective-Prologue documents the songs of resilience sung in protest against oppression and is one other unique portrayal of storytelling in the fest.

From recentring of lives and identities in Ennittum Idam Illathavar (Yet They Have No Space) which narrates the lives of Srilankan Tamil Migrants, the innocent portrayal of the question of faith in Vinod Leela’s The God of Small Things, to the restoration of natural spaces and indigenous culture, the list saves the hues and ideas of current novel trends in the art of filmmaking. Harigovind’s Chekhov’s Gun, Hanan, Memory Loss, and Muted Crows are other documentaries screened in the campus category.