New Delhi, June 20 (UNI) Jagran Film Festival (JFF) is more than just cinema.
For years, with its eclectic mix of genres, languages and emotions, it has enamored audiences all over India. In its continued attempt to create a culture of cinema appreciation, the 9th edition will focus on new categories to connect great cinema with nationwide audiences.
This year, JFF received nearly 3,500 submissions across genres from 100 countries. The curated programme will showcase over 200 films.
'The competition segment will include International and Indian Features, Shorts, Indian Documentaries and Student Films. The non-competitive segment will include Thematic Specials, a Retrospective, Tributes, India Showcase, World Panorama and Hot Shorts,' a JFF statement said on Wednesday.
JFF has introduced a new competition category of Indian Documentary Features this year, comprising internationally acclaimed and award-winning documentaries such as Rahul Jain’s 'Machines', Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla’s 'An Insignificant Man', Vaishali Sinha’s 'Ask the Sexpert', Suman Ghosh’s 'The Argumentative Indian', Anushka Meenakshi and Ishwar Srikumar’s 'Up Down Sideways', Onir’s 'Raising The Bar' and Kamal Swaroop’s 'Pushkar Puran'. The category will have a special jury consisting of the country’s leading journalists, led by Sudhir Mishra, it said.
The India Features Competition includes award-winning films in varied languages including three Malayalam films: Angamaly Diaries director Lijo Jose Pellissery’s next - 'Ee. Ma. Yau', Zakaria Edayur’s Sudani From Nigeria and Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s S Durga besides Rima Das’ 'Village Rockstars' (Assamese) Abhay Simha’s 'Paddayi' (Tulu), Atanu Ghosh’s Mayurakshi' (Bengali), Pushpendra Singh’s 'Ashwatthama' (Brijbhasha), 'Three Smoking Barrels' (six different North East languages), as well as Hindi language films such as Anurag Kashyap’s Mukkabaaz, Shoojit Sircar’s October and Meghna Gulzar’s 'Raazi, it said.
'The Shorts programme will include a competition category with Indian and international shorts and a non-competition category called Hot Shorts. The curated India Shorts Competition segment will feature shorts from across the country such as Scattered (Kashmiri), Paashi (Pahadi, Hindi), Eye Test (Malayalam),
Adrift (Bengali), Valay (Marathi),a dialogue-less short, Rozana, a documentary short, Bismaar Ghar (Gujarati) and Abhishek Verma’s animation short, Hide and Seek,' it said.
The segment includes two World Premieres:Vikas Chandra’s Maya (Hindi) starring Kirti Kulhari and Naveen Kasturia and Koel Sen’s Valay (Marathi). There are also four India Premieres of internationally acclaimed shorts, Ruthy Pribar’s The Caregiver(English, Hebrew, Gujarati), Reema Sengupta’s Counterfeit Kunkoo
(Marathi, Hindi), Mansi Jain’s Everything Is Fine starring Seema Pahwa and Paulomi Ghosh (Hindi)and Ajitpal’s Singh’s Humming Bird (Hindi), the statement said.
'The International Shorts Competition features internationally acclaimed narratives plus documentary and animation shorts from 2017-18. The curated program will showcase World Premiere of Chachura (Argentina) and India Premiere of award- winning narrative shorts such as On The Waitlist (Taiwan) directed by Hung Yi Wu, The Bridge (Brazil), Lilly Within the Clouds (France) Bubble (Iran/Australia), Three Men (Iceland), Bakyt (Kyrgystan) by Meerim Dogdurboka, Odd Job Man (Denmark), Fish (Estonia), the documentary short The Carpenters (China,USA), Manicure (Egypt) and an animation short My Mum’s Bonkers (South Africa),' it said.
The non-competitive shorts segment Hot Shorts features some of the best shorts in recent years including Payal Kapadia’s award-winning Afternoon Clouds, (Cinefondation, Cannes Film Festival 2017), Aaba (Berlinale 2017), animation shorts - Tokri and Maacher Jhol and Soundproof starring Soha Ali Khan. Thematic Specials will screen two documentaries in the Fan section, Being Bhaijaan, a documentary on Salman Khan and For The Love Of A Man, a documentary on Rajnikanth.The City focus: Mumbai will feature two films, Tu Hai
Mera Sunday and Court, State focus: Maharashtra will feature acclaimed Marathi films Killa and Madhuri Dixit starrer Bucket List and Country focus will showcase some of the best films from Argentina. There will be an Achievers Segment featuring best of the biopics, it said.
'The India Showcase category takes us on an emotional roller coaster with films like 'Turup' by Ektara Collective, 'Bioscopewallah' starring Danny Denzongappa, 'The Hungry', Devashish Makhija’s 'Ajji' and 'Kuch Bheege Alfaaz'.World Panorama category will feature films like 'Fan of Amoory', a sweet Arabic film that follows a young boy as he goes through challenges to achieve his dream of becoming a professional football player,' it said.
The newly introduced Student Focus category introduces movies like 'Death Lay Here', a short horror film about a young man who comes across a box with a hidden secret. 'Gift', the story of a family reacting to a foreign object entering their home and their struggle against its power, it added.
'With the phenomenal response we received last year, we are determined to travel farther and spread the wonderful stories filmmakers have to tell wider. This year, we have introduced new categories in an effort to be more diverse and inclusive of all genres and topics. The culture of appreciating great films and doing it as a community no matter where we come from, is what the Jagran Film Festival is all about,' Basant Rathore, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Brand Development, Jagran Prakashan Ltd said.
The 2018 edition of the Jagran Film Festival that will connect 18 cities and showcase over 200 films will commence in Delhi and tour Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna, Dehradun, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bhopal, Indore, Gorakhpur, Agra, Ludhiana, Hissar, Meerut and Raipur before concluding in Mumbai in September.
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