NEW DELHI: A total of 793 entries have been received from 34 countries for the Mumbai International film Festival for documentary, short and animation films.
The festival organised by the Films Division will be held as usual at the NCPA, Mumbai, (also known as Tata Centre) from 3 to 9 February.
Information and Broadcasting Secretary Bimal Julka, along with Joint Secretary (Films) Raghvendra Singh held a review meeting with the festival director V S Kundu and the organizing committee members in Mumbai.
Of the entries, 588 are for the national section and 205 for the international section.
MIFF is the oldest and the largest international film festival for the non-feature and animation films in Asia, and is often held at par with internationally renowned short film festivals like Berlin, Leipzig, Krakow (Poland) and Tampere (Finland).
Julka said: “The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is committed to promoting documentary and short films, and MIFF provides one of the best platforms for showcasing our film making talent. MIFF 2014 brings a lot of valuable content for film makers and cineastes.”
The total number of awards for MIFF 2014 has gone up from 22 to 32. Apart from the regular awards, new awards have been introduced for producer, cinematographer, editor, sound recordist and animator. Awards for the most innovative film (named after Pramod Pati who was an experimental filmmaker and head of the Films Division) and most popular film of the festival have also been instituted.
A veteran Indian documentary filmmaker will be honoured with the V Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award. MIFF will distribute cash awards worth Rs 55 lakhs apart from golden conches, trophies and certificates to the winners in different categories.
MIFF 2014 will also see an increased international participation. As part of an initiative to take cinema to the students, Cinekids, Amsterdam and Lennep Media will hold a ‘Dutch Children’s film festival-cum-students film workshop’ for school children of Mumbai. ActionAid will hold a film festival on ‘Our City Ourselves’ as part of MIFF 2014.
An attempt is being made to hold a Film Market for documentary films, which will be a first of its kind initiative in India.
In another new initiative, the festival directorate has decided to hold parallel screenings of national competition films in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Guwahati and Nagpur, for the benefit of documentary film lovers, who are unable to travel to Mumbai to participate in the festival.
The festival will pay tribute to the acclaimed Canadian documentary filmmaker Peter Wintonick who passed away on 18 November by screening his select works. Besides, the festival will have panel discussions, directors’ adda, retrospectives, homages, curated film packages, seminars, workshops and master classes to make MIFF-2014 a rich and wholesome experience for filmmakers, students and cinephiles.
The government of Maharashtra and the Indian Documentary Producers’ Association (IDPA) are the partners of MIFF 2014.
