Eleventh Puducherry international documentary film festival begins on August 4
The Hindu
From exploring the dynamic of a grassroots protest and the complexities of human relationships to a portrayal of the struggles of the marginalised, a range of thought-provoking issues will be foregrounded at the 11th Puducherry International Documentary Short Film Festival, beginning on Friday, August 4, 2023.
From exploring the dynamic of a grassroots protest and the complexities of human relationships to a portrayal of the struggles of the marginalised, a range of thought-provoking issues will be foregrounded at the 11th Puducherry International Documentary Short Film Festival, beginning on Friday, August 4, 2023.
The three-day festival at the Alliance Francaise will feature 32 films in 11 languages from nine countries, including an array of award-winning documentaries.
The collaborators for the free-entry event are the Puducherry Film Forum, Films Division under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, National Film Development Corporation of India, the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers/Artists’ Association and the Alliance Francaise Pondichery.
The curtain goes up on the festival on August 4 at 5 p.m., with the screening of My Imaginary Country by Chilean film-maker Patricio Guzman which turns the lens on a new kind of grassroots protest in which every volunteer is a citizen journalist, and a hundred mobile phone cameras document atrocities of the army and the police.
This will be followed by screening of two other documentaries.
Tourism Minister K. Lakshminarayanan, general manager, National Film Development Corporation, D. Ramakrishnan, director M. Sivakumar, editor B. Lenin and actor Rohini are among the dignitaries expected to join the event, said K. R. Ravichandran and S. Ramachandran, festival organisers.
Alliance Francaise Director Laurent Jalicous, who launched a festival booklet, underscored the importance of documentaries in this age of misinformation. He pointed out that the French documentary filmmaker Agnes Varda put it aptly when she said: “Documentaries are essays, attempts to understand the world, to understand others and understand yourself”.
Ambassador of Finland to India Kimmo Lähdevirta on Tuesday said Finnish companies “face issues” in Tamil Nadu due to regulations that prevent their participation in tendering processes. Interacting with senior journalists of The Hindu at its head office in Chennai, he said certain regulations imposed by the State government were limiting.