Mumbai, January 28, 2017
The much awaited documentary film festival in India, the Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films got off to a flying start with Oscar nominated 'I Am Not Your Negro' shown as the opening film.
The inaugural ceremony at NCPA witnessed a congregation of documentary and short film makers from India and abroad. Veteran film maker, Goutam Ghose, who has also produced significant documentary films was the chief guest. Kiran Shantaram, Mrinal Kulkarni, Mike Pandey were among other dignitaries present. Commending the efforts made by MIFF in providing a platform for the documentary film makers, Goutam Ghose said that MIFF is certainly a pride of India. He congratulated Films Division and Ministry of Information and broadcasting for organising MIFF consistently with great enthusiasm.
The ceremony also saw the customary introduction of the International and National Jury. The International Jury for MIFF 2018 comprises Canadian filmmaker Elisa Paloschi (Chairperson), French documentary maker Dominique Dubosc, filmmaker and academic from the Philippines - Baby Ruth Villarama, noted Indian filmmaker Haobam Paban Kumar and animation expert Ashish Kulkarni. The National Jury, chaired by film critic and author Maithili Rao, has Turkish animator Berat Ilk, French author and film producer Pierre Assouline, National Award winning filmmakers M P Sukumaran Nair and Arun Chaddha as other members.
The opening ceremony also saw a scintillating dance performance by the 'India's Got Talent' find Prince Dance Group from Odisha.
The week long film festival will showcase nearly 430 documentary, short and animation films from over 40 countries. The oldest and the largest film festival for non-feature films in South Asia, which began in 1990 is being organized by the Films Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India.
Besides the contemporary films vying for top honours in the International and National Competition for Golden Conch and Silver Conch awards, MIFF will showcase best documentary short and animation films produced in India and abroad under special packages including Jury retrospectives and Best of Fests.
The Animation Package includes films of Ivan Maximov of Russia, Baret Ilk of Turkey and Lea Zagury of Brazil. A special package of French Shorts and Experimental films curated by Gabriele Brennen of the 3iS International Institute for Image and Sound, Paris will be screened on 29th. The Best of the Fests package includes films sourced from top documentary film festivals like Berlinale, HotDocs, Canada, Melbourne Documentary Festival and Guanajuato Film Festival, Mexico. A retrospective of veteran Iranian film maker - Rakshan Benietemad, will include 3 documentaries from 3 decades. Other retrospectives will cover works of French film maker Dominic Dubosc, Mudhushree Dutta and noted animator Bhimsain Khurana. There are also special film packages from the North East and Jammu & Kashmir.
Another important feature of MIFF 2018 is students' participation. Student films of FTII, Satyajit Ray Film & TV Institute, Whistling Woods, MGR Film & TV Institute, Prayasam, State University of Rohtak, National Institute of Design will be screened during the festival.
To add flavour and substance to the festival, workshops, master classes, lecture-demonstrations and panel discussions on topics of interest will take place during MIFF 2018. Nandan Saxena will be conducting a 4 day workshop on 'Non-fiction cinematography'. Anand Gnadhi's team will give a glimpse of new Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Technology.
The screenings will be held in the theatres in Films Division complex, 24-Pedder Road, Mumbai and nearby Russian Culture Centre from January 29, 2017.
For media / delegate registrations visit www.miff.in+
Mumbai, January 28, 2017
Oscar nominated documentary on the American Civil Rights Movement, I Am Not Your Negro, was the inaugural film of the Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation films, MIFF 2018, screened at NCPA, flagging off the 15th edition of MIFF.
The film is one of the most talked about documentaries in recent times and has won top awards in Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and 8 other international festivals. It is 93 minutes long and is directed by Raoul Peck, who has been the Minister of Culture in his native country, Haiti.
Proving fact is stranger than fiction, the film has a history quite its own. In 1979, black American author James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent, describing his next project, to be called 'Remember This House'. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
But at the time of Baldwin’s death, in 1987, he left behind only 30 completed pages of his manuscript. 'I Am Not Your Negro' envisions the book James Baldwin never finished, a radical narration about race in America, using the writer’s original words, as read by actor Samuel L. Jackson. Alongside a flood of rich archival material, the film draws upon Baldwin’s notes on the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr,. to explore and bring a fresh and radical perspective to the current racial narrative in America.
Raoul Peck’s body of work includes feature narrative films like The Man by the Shore (Competition Cannes 1993), Lumumba (Director’s Fortnight, Cannes 2000, bought and aired by HBO), Sometimes in April (HBO, Berlinale 2005), Moloch Tropical (Toronto 2009, Berlin 2010) and Murder in Pacot (Toronto 2014, Berlin 2015). His documentaries include Lumumba, Death of a Prophet (1990), Desounen (1994, BBC) and Fatal Assistance (Berlinale, Hot Docs 2013), which was supported by the Sundance Institute and Britdoc Foundation (UK) and broadcast on major TV channels (Canal+, ARTE, etc.)
His latest work is the feature 'The Young Karl Marx' (Le jeune Karl Marx), a European co-production, shot in Germany and Belgium, which was shown and highly appreciated at the Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI) and the International Film Festival of India (IFFI).