With a unique objective to showcase the best of regional cinema and bring together films of eminent directors as well as first-timers under one roof, Habitat Film Festival kicked off in New Delhi recently, opening doors for filmmakers to screen films in Hindi, English, Bengali, Malayalam, Assamese, Marathi, Tamil and Konkani. The 10-day festival captures the creativity of the makers and has shortlisted films that are high on content and far from the mainstream Bollywood.
Highlighting about the core idea behind such a distinguished festival, Vidyun Singh, director, programmes, says, “The focus of the festival remains unchanged, in its single minded focus to turn the spotlight on cinema from India that is beyond the brouhaha and blaze of mainstream Bollywood. Films, that are directorial debuts, new works of brilliance from old masters, classic archival restorations, controversial, irreverent, path breaking, retelling a tale or a fantastical work of Utopian yearning. The content and themes are varied and span themes as diverse as displacement, migration, intolerance, gender, caste, corrupt systems and destruction of environment and indigenous culture.”
The event kicked off by paying a tribute to late actor Om Puri. Filmmaker Govind Nilahani hosted the retrospective segment on the veteran actor. Some of Puri's finest works such as Tamas, East is East and Sadgati were also screened. Besides this, the festival will see screenings of acclaimed national award winning films such as Sera Sera in Konkani, Bisorjon in Bengali and Mukti Bhawan in Hindi during the 10 days. The regional highlights include Sairat (Marathi), Diaries (Malayalam), Binoculars (Assamese) and Pinneyum (Malayalam). Sudheesh Sankar will also premiere his Tamil film, Katrikka Vendakka for the first time at the film festival.
First-time directors such as Avinash Das (Anaarkali of Aarah), Rima Das (Antardrishti), Ananya Kasaravalli (Harikatha Prassanga) and K.P. Vyasan (Ayaal Jeevichirupund) will also be conducting film screenings. Incidentally, Bollywood actor Konkona Sen Sharma too screened her directorial debut A Death in The Gunj as the opening film of the festival on Friday.
The film, shot in 31 days is set in 1979 and is based on an Anglo-Indian family who goes for a road trip on a family vacation. Konkana calls it to be inspired by real-life events. “My father used to narrate a lot of stories while we were young. Some of them were funny ones from his life and others spooky. My parents used to own a home in McCluskieganj in Jharkhand and my grandparents used to live there. From Kolkata we used to drive there and it was a spooky place, remote, forgotten and quiet. This is one of the spooky stories that I found very chilling and it haunted me for a long time. The film is based out of some true events. I wanted to make a film that was interesting for me and I hoped that it could translate into an interesting experience for other people as well,” she says.
Apart from this, a K.A. Abbas Exhibition along with panel discussions and book launches are also scheduled to take place. The panel discussion will be on 'Film making Past & Present: Challenges of the Future' and will see Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Ananya Kasaravalli, Avinash Das and Karthick Naren as panelists.
