The first edition of the International Film Festival for Persons With Disabilities (IFFPwD) came to an end on the occasion of World Disability Day on Thursday with the screening of filmmaker Shonali Bose's "Margarita with a Straw".
The closing ceremony of the festival, attended by dignitaries from political and film backgrounds, focused upon the spirit of "special people", where films made on them and by them were honoured.
Organised by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) and union social justice and empowerment ministry in collaboration with the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), the three-day film festival, which took place here at Siri Fort, began on Tuesday for persons with disabilities and featured special films that zoomed in on their lives.
"Films made on specially abled people are not for sympathy. They are made for creating sensibility. When you watch these films, you realise that the strength of a human is not in the physical body but in the human spirit," Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, who was chief guest at the closing ceremony, said.
The ceremony was attended by Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot, Union Minister of State for Social justice and Empowerment Vijay Sampla and Bollywood actors Vivek Oberoi and Sanjay Suri among others.
Rathore said that "the power of films is tremendous" and even he used to inspire himself by recalling various film dialogues during his days as a professional shooter.
"I remember when I used to train myself as a shooter for Olympics, I used to keep in mind the dialogues and other inspirational talks in the films in my mind. It used to work like a source of inspiration for me. In our day-to-day life, we often get distressed through stress. And when we see an actor playing a specially abled person in a film, it gives us a feeling that such type of hurdles can be overcome to achieve success," he said.
Gehlot, who was present at the opening ceremony, said the "reason because of which we decided to start this festival has become successful today."
"The aim of the festival was to show how films can play a big role in empowering the physically disabled people. Films can change people's perception. This festival has shown that," he said.
Talking about the initiative, Vivek Oberoi said: "It was awesome to see some really good films that sensitise people. Through this stage I want to say that we always call them as people with disabilities."
"I'm requesting all the ministers to change this word. We should call them 'differently abled' or 'special people'. Just like a painting every colour brings beauty, these people bring beauty in our lives," he added.
IFFPwD, which was headed by jury members Marco Mueller (Germany), Jayshree Raveendran and Aamir Bashir, started with the screening of Marathi film "Yellow" and featured 40 films in total, which included entries from countries like France, Russia, Spain, Germany and Iran.
Some of the awards, which were presented during the closing ceremony included the Best Short Film to "Fingertip" (France), Best Short Film Director to Julia Kolenakova for "Predators of Transylvania", Best Documentary Feature Film to "Algorithms", Best Documentary Film to "Goonga Pehlwan", Best Documentary Film Director to Amrita Dasgupta for her film "The New Girl in Class" and Special Jury Mention Award to "Yellow", which has been directed by Mahesh Limaye.
"This was a litmus test for us and we have found that doing a film festival is really tough. But after the three days while closing the festival I can say that it was worth it. This is just the starting and will continue in the years to come," the festival's director Awanish Kumar Awasthi, joint secretary, DEPwD, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, said.
