Documentaries hold a charm of their own. Short, some long, straight, succinct, stark and searing in their account and depiction of life’s harsh realities they are a genre of their own. Independent of the more popular cinemas docu-dramas have matched strides with the longer and more popular formats of cinematic expressions of life and society.

Right from the gold old days of John Grierson to Robert J Flaherty’s Nanook of the North to cinema veritae varieties to the modern day, more popular, powerful and pugnacious works such as Bowling for Columbine, Super Size Me, Fahrenheit 9/11, March of the Penguins and An Inconvenient Truth, documentaries have revolutionised the way documentaries work and are approached today.

Providing a special platform for this special form of cinematic excellence and expressions, the 2nd Edition of Biffes — Bengalooru International Film Festival 2008 that got underway on Thursday, recognising the need to give prominence to this art form as well, is showcasing a melange of award-winning and highly accoladed documentaries.

Drawn from both within India and worldwide specially culled and curated under the tutelage of Sushma Veerappa and friends from Vikalp — Friends for Freedom — Bengalooru, these documentaries are also on show at Biffes for the practitioners as also lovers of this form of expressive cinema.

Concurrently running along with the main film festival these series of documentaries are also being screened at the Vision Cinema Campus as a special section in one of the three screening facilities.

The documentaries being showcased from Friday through to Thursday next are as follows: Stalin K’s India Untouched — Stories of a People Apart, Satyajit Ray’s documentary on Poet Laureate Rabindranath Tagore and Gianfranco Norelli & Joanna Head’s UK-US co-production’s Taxi Dreams.

Shymal Karmarakar’s I am the Beautiful, Gianfranco Norelli & Bruno Sorrentino’s UK-Canadian production’s City of Dreams, Meghnath and Biju Toppo’s Gadi Lohardaga Mail, Gianfranco Norelli’s Italian short Bitter Bread.

Jabbar Patyel’s Hans Akela (billed as a must-see about the search of a grandson into his grandfather’s life and works. Bhuvanesh Komkali takes us back for a retrospective look into his grandfather, Kumar Gandharva’s probe of musical roots), Julian Samuel’s Canadian film Atheism, Paromita Vohra’s Morality TV & Loving Jehad — Ek Manohar Kahani, and Ulrike Franke & Michael Loeken’s German production Losers & Winners.

Israeli-Ethopian film Sisai, Madhushree Dutta’s I Live in Behrampada, Mani Kaul’s The Nomad Puppeteer, Vinod Raja’s Mahua Memories and Chantal Brief’s French film The General Store. 

Ashok Rane’s Masti Bhara Hai Sama, Anand Patwardhan’s Bombay Our City, Bharat Murthy’s What are you looking at? Jonathan Demme’s Canadian fare The Agronomist and William Nessen’s Australian docu-drama The Black Road: On the Front Lines of Ache’s War.

Chandra Siddan’s Remembrance of Things Present, Reena Mohan’s Kamlabai, SNS Sastry’s Flashback, Vasuda Joshi’s Moustaches Unlimited, Israeli Dan Geva’s Description of a Memory, and Michael Skolnik’s Without the King.

Latha Vachchhani’s In Search of Gandhi, Deepa Dhanraj’s Something Like a War and Tom Zubrycki’s Vietnam Symphony.

Indeed, the compendium of about 50 odd documentaries more than match the popular cinemas on show.

A true hallmark to over-arching importance and the genre and varieties they provide. Sure folks, if shorts are your favourites, then Biffes has ensured your voice too has been heard. Right Ho! have a dekko on the docus on show.