It’s a celebration of art and reality at the 11th edition of IDSFFK

To be organised by the State Chalachitra Academy from July 20 to 24, the IDSFFK  promises to showcase a bunch of talents.
11th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK). ( Photo | twitter@@KeralaFilmFest)
11th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK). ( Photo | twitter@@KeralaFilmFest)

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Film buffs are in for another treat. Come Friday, the state capital city will host the 11th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK).  To be organised by the State Chalachitra Academy from July 20 to 24, the IDSFFK promises to showcase a bunch of talents.

The five-day international fest will screen about 206 productions,  including long and short documentaries, short fictions, campus films, animation and music videos. To be held at Kairali, Sree and Nila Theatres under the Kerala State Film Development Corporation, there will be 64 productions in the competition section in addition to 13 music videos and nine animation films.

The 11th IDSFFK, for the first time in the history of the fest, is introducing a Lifetime Achievement Award on the lines of IFFK. The prestigious award carries citation and Rs 2 lakh. The award will be declared in a day.Catharsis by Indira Zen, the filmmaker who recently passed away here, will be screened in the Homage category. A widely-discussed film, Catharsis talks about the political violence in Kannur and its reflections in the society.

Engaging with sexualities - PSBT, Anand Patwardhan: Rebel with a cause, ‘When Stories Come Calling: The works of Lata Mani’, ‘Persian Tales: Short fiction from Iran’ and ‘Cinephilia: An eye on cinema’ are some of the keenly-awaited categories.There will be two special screenings - Opportunity, a 5-minute long musical short fiction on water conservation by Jazeer Thekkekara and Work of Fire by KR Manoj. A film that takes a look at the Indian fireworks industry while asking the very question on whether we need a firework industry at all.

The documentary and short film festival provides a platform for budding young talents to come forward with their experiments. It’s unique in bringing together an array of activities and is expected to reflect the boom in production. The festival will have regular sessions like Masterclass, Open forum and In Conversation.Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the festival at Kairali complex in the presence of Cultural minister AK Balan.

The international documentary festival has been drawing good response, said Academy secretary Mahesh Panju. “Being the 11th edition, this time there are a lot of new additions. Compared to previous editions, we expect at least 1500 delegates this time,” he said.

Competitions

There will be competitions in four sections including Long Documentary, short documentary, short fiction and campus film. In addition, there will be the Focus section - Focus long documentary, focus short documentary, focus short fiction, focus animation and focus music video.

An Engineered Dream (Hemant Gaba), In Fact…/ Tin Satyi… (Debalina Majumder), Lock and Key/ Taala Te Kunjee ( Shilpi Gulati), Returning to the First Beat/ Phir Se Samm Pe Aana (Surabhi Sharma), S.D. : Saroj Dutta and His Times  (Kasturi Basu, Mitali Biswas), Santhal Family to Mill Re-call (Ramani RV), The Third Infinity (Piyush Shah), The Tribal Scoop  (Beeswaranjan Pradhan) and Up Down & Sideways/ Kho Ki Pa Lü (Anushka Meenakshi, Iswar Srikumar) an 83-minute docu without any dialogues are among the long documentaries in the competition section.

Jury - Fiction
Kavitha Lankesh  Filmmaker, screenwriter and lyricist with the Kannada film industry
Amir Masoud Soheili International award-winning Iranian short filmmaker and Creative Director of Asia Peace Film Festival.
Mahesh Narayanan Filmmaker, editor and screenwriter from Kerala.

Jury - Non-Fiction
Raed Andoni
Palestinian filmmaker who has been working as an independent producer and co-founder of leading Palestinian production company Dar Films
Paromita Vohra
Filmmaker and screenwriter from Mumbai. Her documentaries focus on feminism, desire, urban life and popular culture
Amudhan R P
Documentary filmmaker, curator and activist from Madurai in Tamil Nadu.

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