Kinnari

Courtesy: Belli Rekhe, BIFFES Newsletter

“Cinema is not just about art, or just technicality, it’s a vehicle of culture, a part of another place, space and time that we momentarily belong to and understand”, says, N Vidyashankar, artistic director of Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFES).

This is a thought process that has been reinforced with each edition of BIFFES, and none more so that the 10th year of the annual film celebration. The 10th edition, that took place in Feb-March 2018 saw throngs of people line up in the halls of PVR, Orion mall. This past edition of BIFFES brought in 220 films across 12 screens from more than 45 countries, and was witnessed by more than 9000 delegates (with 1,10,000 Footfalls), who enjoyed and appreciated the quality of cinema presented.

BIFFES picks a theme each year around which it curates a category of movies, and the 10th edition theme was, “Human Rights and Social Justice”. The big winners of the year at the festival were, “Reservation” and South Korean movie, “Excavator”. “Reservation”, directed by Nikhil Manjoo, bagged the Karnataka Chalanchitra Academy Award under the Kannada Competition category. “Excavator” by Ju-Hyoung Lee received the Best Asian Film – NETPAC Award.

As each edition of BIFFES passes by, the awareness to bring to the people, filmmaking in its entirety, making it an accessible form of communication has strengthened, BIFFES 10th edition along with varied master classes hosted workshops. A screen writing workshop by Clair Dobbin, coordinated by P Sheshadri. An interactive session with Bollywood filmmaker Rakeysh OmPrakash Mehra, where the topic of discussion was, “Challenges to filmmakers in present times”. There was also a study of films by Satyajit Ray, and a special discussion on emerging technologies in film. Master classes addressed matters on documentary film making, scripting and curating.

Every year as the film festival comes by, it causes the external world to recede and allows for movie goers to choose and experience different worlds. Sandhya Rani, writer of Nathicharami, one of the films being screened in the present, 11th edition of BIFFES, sums it beautifully when she says, “That time of the year when the whole world stands still!”.

So, without further ado, with all the memories and successes of the past, welcome to a new chapter and edition of BIFFES! The special theme of this year is, “Nature’s Fury”, and another unique line up is – Gandhi @ 150. We hope our world of cinema is a wonderous place to belong to in this upcoming week.