THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: 19 award-winning films from across the globe will charm the audience at the 14th International Documentary and Short Film Festival (IDSFFK) which will begin in the capital on Friday. Including this, 262 films will be screened in 12 categories, at the festival to be held at Kairali, Sree and Nila theatres.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the sixday festival at Kairali theatre. He will present the Lifetime Achievement Award to documentary director and editor Reena Mohan. The award carries Rs 2 lakh, a sculpture and certificate.
Eight films by Reena Mohan will be screened. These include Kamala Bai (1991), SkinDeep (1998), On An Express Highway (2003) and Mani Kaul’s ‘Matti Manas’(1984). In the international short fiction category 24 films will be screened while in non-competition Malayalam category there will be nine movies. There are nine animation films including Malayalam films ‘Arike’ and ‘Manchadikalam’ and four music videos such as ‘December’, ‘Dhoop’, and ‘Lijin Jose’s ‘Yours is Not to Reason Why.’
Movies ‘A Home for My Heart’, ‘A-K-A, Ladies Only’ will be screened in the long documentary competition category and 18 films including ‘Gopi’, ‘Fantasy Park’, ‘My Son and His Grandfather’, and ‘New Classroom’, will be screened in the short documentary competition category.
Among the 19 award-winning films, there are movies like Bettina, which won the FIPRESCI award at the Berlin Film Festival and A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here will be screened in the Best of the World category. Portuguese film A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here is about a lonely girl who attends a lesbian party and what happens next.
Shaunak Sen’s film All That Brothers, which is about air pollution in Delhi, Natasha Urban’s The Eclipse, which is about the war conditions in Yugoslavia in the 90s and Lebanese film Warsha will also be screened in this category. Jessica Kingdon’s Ascension, Lupe Bureau’s Trenches set against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, Sunday Morning, which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and Kem Kaya’s Love Deutsche Mark and Death are part of this category.
Manjira Dutta’s ‘Babulal Bhiyu Ki Kurbani’ (1988), Sanjay Kakin’s’ In the Forest Hangs on a Bridge’ (1999), Rahul Roy’s’ Sundar Nagri’ (2003) and Nirmal Chander’s’ Dreaming Taj Mahal (2010) are scheduld to be screened at the fest. National and state-wide competitions in fiction and non-fiction categories are included in the festival. Around 1,200 delegates and around 250 filmmakers including Anjali Monterio, Joshi Joseph, Urdu director Danish Ringsu, and Bengali director Somnath Mondal will attend the festival.
Distribution of passes to delegates will begin at Kairali theatre on Thursday.
Delegates can register either online at https://registration or directly from the delegate cell at the Kairali theatre.