Let a thousand filmmakers and cinephiles bloom appears to be the byword for the Aurangabad International Film Festival.
Organised by Mumbai’s Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan, in association with the Nath Group and Mahatma Gandhi Mission, the five-day festival kicks off on Wednesday with Cold War , Pawel Pawlikowski’s foreign film Oscar frontrunner and a black and white masterpiece on love, longing and music in the times of political turmoil.
However, besides taking the best of world cinema to the interiors of Maharashtra, promoting film literacy and a robust film-viewing culture, a major aim of the festival — in its sixth edition this year— is to encourage film-making in the Marathwada region.
Short film contest
A competition of short films, limited exclusively to upcoming filmmakers from the eight districts of the Marathwada region, has been set up this year.
Of the 35 entries received, nine are in competition for the top award worth ₹25000; seven will play in the non-competition segment.
A masterclass on making short films by wellknown filmmaker Umesh Kulkarni and a seminar on mobile phone filmmaking — the pros and cons of the emerging accessible filmmaking technology — is being organised to reach out to the young and aspiring filmmakers. Works of the 40 students of the film school in Mahatma Gandhi Mission campus in Aurangabad will also be shown at AIFF this year.
“There are three drama schools in Aurangabad. There is the drama department of the Marathwada university. It is culturally a very rich city,” says festival director Ashok Rane, who took over the reins of AIFF in 2016. “The intent is to make it cinematically rich as well,” he adds.
To that end, since 2006 Mr. Rane himself has been independently conducting a week-long film appreciation course in the drama department of the Marathwada university. A one-year certificate course in filmmaking was introduced there in 2016.
The Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan itself holds Chitrapat Chavadi (Film Adda) once a month in the city.
“Special efforts have been taken [this year] to go to various educational institutions and cultural groups to conduct film appreciation workshops prior to the festival to let the audience know what AIFF has for them in form of programming,” says Mr. Rane.
Originally started as a franchisee of the Pune International Film Festival (PIFF), AIFF is now one of Maharashtra’s leading independent film festivals.
Besides the big ticket, big city film festivals in Mumbai and Pune, smaller festivals are being held in Lonavla, Nashik and Nagpur as well. However, Aurangabad and Kolhapur are regarded as the more serious grassroots film initiatives in Maharashtra with cinema outreach and education as an integral part of their agenda.
World cinema
The festival closes on the December 13 with another Oscar frontrunner and Cannes 2018 Palme D’Or winner, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters .
Jia Zhangke’s Ash Is Purest White and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless (Russia) are the other big attractions in the world cinema section.
AIFF has a competition section for Indian cinema with the best film carrying a cash prize of ₹1 lakh and Golden Kailasa Trophy.
There are eight individual prizes for the best director, script, cinematography, editing, sound design, music, actors - male & female.
Starting this year the festival will also have an audience choice award for the favourite international film screened in the World Cinema and Asian Best sections.
