M Singh, director programmes, Habitat World, India Habitat Centre, emphasises that the festival has carved a niche as one solely dedicated to Indian regional cinema, long before it became the flavour of the season. Regional cinema created a buzz at the National Awards recently, with jury chairperson Shekhar Kapur claiming that it is giving Hindi films a run for their money. “For us, it’s the thirteenth year in our effort to be able to give visibility to wonderful cinema that has always been happening. So, there are a lot of award-winning films and brand new ones which will hopefully go on to win several awards,” she says.
The festival opened on Thursday with Bengali filmmaker Kaushik Ganguly’s drama Drishtikone. Among other notable films are Assamese movie Village Rockstars, which won Best Film at the National Awards, Marathi revenge saga Ajji, films that have had their share of controversies such as Nude and S Durga, and Tamil thrillers Vikram Veda, Aram and Kaatru Veliyidai. Promising a subcontinental sweep, the line-up also includes Ralang Road (Nepali), Juze (Konkani), Hello Arsi (Odia), Idak: The Goat (Marathi), Reservation (Kannada), Walking with the Wind (Ladakhi), Paddayi (Tulu) and Nana — A Tale of Us (Nagamese). A retrospective segment will showcase movies of director K G George, who is credited with revolutionising Malayalam cinema in the 1970s.
Anindya Pulak Banerjee, an actor-turned-director, is one of the newcomers at the fest. His movie, The Watchmaker, being premiered here, is a quasi-surrealist take on cinematic storytelling and is inspired by the German expressionist movement, he says.
“We are a festival with no awards and no jury. We try and focus on people who have made a seminal contribution to Indian cinema, and it’s not restricted to directors. It can be actor, cinematographer, editor, people who are not on screen. So we try and focus audience attention on the craft of cinema,” Singh says.
Noted scholar on Asian cinema Aruna Vasudev, who has been a mentor for the Habitat Film Club, says the movies at the fest over the years have been an eye-opener for a growing audience. “At this festival, you get to see films made in small towns and in languages that are not part of the major ones.”
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