Madurai int’l docu and short film fest begins today

More than 80 documentaries and short films will be screened in nine sections as part of the 20th Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival to be held at different venues in the city from December 6 to 10. The five-day annual festival will screen Indian as well as international documentaries with interactive sections with the directors after each screening.

Organised by Marupakkam, the nine sections include ‘Films from Tamil Nadu’, ‘Rest of India’, ‘International films’, ‘Retrospective’, ‘Artists cinema’ and ‘Pen cinemakal’. The special invitee session will have Lalit Vachani, Pankaj Rishi Kumar, Swarnavel Easwaran, Vani Subramanian and Archana Padmini whose films will be screened. These include five of Lalit Vachani’s films and Swamivel Easwaran’s ‘Student films from Michigan state university, USA” as well as ‘Nagapattinam: waves from the deep’ .

Vachani’s documentaries include “The Starmaker, “The Boy in the Branch, “The men in the tree” and “The Salt Stories”, a film that followed the trail of Mahatma Gandhi’s salt march in India after seventy years. Tales from Napa (26min) is about a village that resisted Hindu fundamentalist forces during the 2002 riots in Gujarat. “Vachani’s documentaries have been screened at most preferred venues in the world. Many have won awards. He will also take a master class at the Madurai Media and Film Studies Academy after the screening,” said R P Amudhan, festival director, said.

“Nine Pencinemakal” is a package of nine visual experiences from women curated by Archana Padmini. “Every single film in this package of nine Malayalam short fictions is a different experimental attempt in the language of cinema, creating a space for woman filmmakers and thereby bringing gender sensitivity into the semantics of film-making, Amudhan said.

Directed by Neelan, “Premji: a non uni-dimensional life” is a cinematic plunge into the myriad-minded personality of stage and film actor Premji (1908-1998), also a poet, playwright and social reformer who played a major role in the renaissance movement in Kerala that brought about sweeping changes in society. Neelan, who is the son of Premji, will have his 83-minute documentary screened under the “Rest of India” section. Neelan’s earlier film on his mother, ‘Amma’, had won state/national awards in 2016.

“Student films from Michigan State University”, curated by Swarnavel Easwaran, will have award-winning documentaries such as “From Flint: Voices of a poisoned City (Dir: Elise Conklin), “Composing our Stories” (Dir: Zoe Kissel), “Negotiations (Dir: Zachary Barnes) and “Migrations of Islam (Dir: Swarnavel Easwaran). Log on to http://maduraifilmfest.blogspot.com/ for screening schedule and chart.