Short film festival to promote young directors

CHANDIGARH: Independent film directors from across the world are all set to make their presence felt in the city through their short films that will be showcased in the upcoming international film festival. The festival is being organized by city-based organization, Fool’s Paradise, in collaboration with European Independent Film Festival (ECU).
Some of the films that will be showcased at the festival include, “Blades of Grass” by a Delhi-based director Ankur Kapoor, “Elkasara” (breaker) by Wesam Mousa from Gaza, “Tick Tock” by a German director Ien Chi, “Invertebrate” by James McAleer from UK, “Lonely Together” by Bjan Kreka from Belgrade, “Protect the Nation” by Candice Reisser from Germany, “Stadgata” by Erick Love from Sweden, “The Man Who Thought” by Mansour Foruzesh and “When On The Road Again” by Kapoor.
Talking about the motive behind organizing such a festival, organizer Mohneesh Kalyan, said, “We had been doing theatre up till now, but we realized that its reach is not much. We can’t afford to call a theatre team from around the world but we can surely invite films as all one has to do is send in a DVD. All we want do is to gather different thoughts, cultures, art, literature, style of direction, photography under one roof.”
He added, “Moreover, we want to promote young directors just like European film festival does because they are very enthusiastic towards film making. One of the directors from Gaza travelled all the way to another city to send the film when he came to know that his film has been selected. He did not have a computer or internet facility, but he made sure that the film reaches us so it feels great to promote such people,” he added.
Being new to the world of film festivals the team gathered all the short films with the help of a social networking site. Jangvir, a team member, said, “We searched for different independent directors on Facebook and left a message on their wall. Also, when we started, we were all by ourselves but during our search we came across ECU who wanted to join us. And the rest as they say is history as from there the number of entries kept increasing.”
Top five films selected during the festival will be sent to European Independent Film Festival, revealed Arun Chadha, another member of the group. The festival will be organized on December 8 and 9 at Punjab Kala Bhawan in Sector 16, near Rose Garden from 6.00pm onwards.