Ankur Film Festival pays tribute to Phalke

Nashik: The 5th edition of Ankur Film Festival began with screening of a documentary here on Dadasaheb Phalke on Friday.

Dual national award and filmfare award-winning director Kamal Swaroop formally inaugurated the festival at

Thoral Hall

on Thursday while dedicating the event to Phalke — father of Indian film industry.

“I consider myself very fortunate to be in the city where Phalke made the first Indian motion picture. This is the land where the Indian film industry began its journey. Our movie on Phalke was screened as the inaugural movie of the festival,” Swaroop said.

While he had a word of praise for the festival being organised for the fifth year, Swaroop lamented that Nashikites are hardly aware of Phalke’s legacy.

“I started working on this documentary from Nashik, but was shocked to see that Nashikites were not aware about his work. Even his birthplace and the wada (house) where the first shot of Indian film industry was okayed, is not being preserved,” he said.

Friday was the first day of the festival where 18 films were screened. It began with the movie ‘Shahiri’. Award winning short films like Savat, Baluta and Niyati and English short films Landmass and Common Diaries were also screened.

A workshop on Approaches to Short-Film Making was conducted in the afternoon where film scholar

Anil Zankar

shared his expertise with the participants. The festival events are free for all.