Campus film festivals are back

Synergia, a two-day festival, will begin on Friday

A scene from Spring of Mushrooms, the inaugural film at the festival.

After a long break due to the COVID-19 induced restrictions, campus film festivals are back. The Campus Youth Forum, a forum of college students, is organising Synergia, a festival of short films, documentaries, and animation films, at the Kerala Sahitya Akademi auditorium on March 11 and 12.

Film-maker Vidhu Vincent will inaugurate the festival. Spring of Mushrooms, an FTII diploma film directed by Rahul Mahesh, who hails from Thrissur, is the inaugural film.

The two-day film festival arises from the general feeling that some positive vibes have to be instilled among college students, since there weren’t any cultural activity or social engagement on the campus for almost two years due to the COVID-19 lockdown and online classes, says Anu Pappachan, festival director.

Students and teachers from colleges in and around Thrissur and film society activists have joined hands to organise the festival showcasing documentaries, short films, animation films, experimental films, and music videos.

The film packages include the ‘digital rights’ film package from the Philippines, animation films from IDC Design School, Mumbai, and the NID, Ahmedabad, student films from FTII (Pune) and the KR Narayanan Institute, Kanjiramattam, and national and international films curated by filmmaker R.P. Amudan, says K.C. Santhosh Kumar, festival curator.

Campus movies by students across Kerala and a few selected films from the Thrissur Press Club Geo Sunny film awards package will also be screened.

Fr. Benny Benedict is the festival adviser.

'CampuSPEAK', an exhibition of words and images from various campuses, will be another attraction of the festival. Students from various campuses will showcase their scribblings, sketches, collages, paintings and anything that expresses the unexpressed of the two long years of lockdown. Students from the College of Fine Arts will take the lead in curating this show.

There will also be street theatre performances, recital of poems, folk songs, student bands, and other cultural expressions at the venue.