Hamid, a movie set in Kashmir directed by filmmaker Aijaz Khan, gave an emotional send-off to the seventh edition of Dharmashala International Film Festival (DIFF) Sunday.
Hamid became the closing feature of the festival after the organisers decided to drop Ere Gowda’s debut directorial venture Balekempa following sexual harassment allegations against him. The Aijaz Khan film revolves around eight-year-old boy Hamid whose father has gone missing and according to his mother, father has gone to Allah.
When told 786 is God's number, Hamid decides to call Allah with his father's old mobile phone. He gets in touch with Abhay, a CRPF officer, and the two unknowingly change each other's lives. "The kind of response I have received here at DIFF is overwhelming. I hope Hamid’s innocence captures more and more hearts," said Aijaz.
The film was screened at the Hermann Gmeiner Auditorium in the Tibet Children’s Village School. A special panel discussion on the #MeToo movement in India was also conducted on the final day.
Filmmakers Monica Wahi, Anamika Haksar and Bina Paul were part of the panel. The four-day-long film extravaganza was opened by Ukranian filmmaker Dar Gai’s critically-acclaimed feature film Namdev Bhau: In Search of Silence. Another major highlight of DIFF this year was Manoj Bajpayee’s Bhonsle directed by Devashish Makhija.
The film, which features Bajpayee in the role of a 65-year-old retired police man, received an exceptional response at the festival. Bajpayee, 49, also conducted a session titled 'Art of Acting' in which he shared his journey of becoming one of India's most celebrated performers in recent times.
The festival, which aims at promoting new talent from across the globe, focused a lot on the technical aspects of filmmaking and photography this year. "This year apart from showcasing films we wanted to give the cinema enthusiasts a deeper understating of the craft and what goes into making a film, that is why we decided to organise workshops on various technical aspects of filmmaking,” said festival co-director Ritu Sarin.
The DIFF Film Fellows initiative, this year, focused on up-and-coming filmmakers from Himachal Pradesh. The selected fellows were Rahat Mahajan, Aman Sharma, Mrinali Singha, Vaasu Soni and Kesang Thakur, who were mentored by award-winning filmmakers Gurvinder Singh and Anupama Srinivasan.
Festival directors Ritu and Tenzing’s fiction feature, The Sweet Requiem, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival-2018, had its Asia Premiere on the final day.
DIFF also organised Indian premieres of Hiroshi Sunairi’s 48 Years: Silent Dictator (Japan), Waru (New Zealand), Tashi Gyeltshen’s The Red Phallus and Luc Schaedler’s A Long Way Home.
