Varied selection on screen

A short film festival, organised by Suchitra Film Society, was held recently in the City. This film festival aimed at providing a platform for young film-makers to launch their work.

It was designed to promote films made by aspiring film-makers of all ages — a space where they could showcase their personal and creative responses to various social and political issues.

It was a two-day event, with the first day dedicated to the screening of short films. The screenings were followed by informative discussions between the experts on one side and the film-makers and crew members on the other.

The audience was allowed to watch the discussion. This gave film-makers, especially the younger ones, an opportunity to put forward and clarify their own perspectives and opinions, which were expressed in their films.

In total, 30 short films were screened. The event drew a fairly decent crowd. Movies such as ‘Beware’, ‘Rag Picker’, ‘Hot Seat’, ‘Fashion Street’, and ‘Chick N Town’ were among those which were showcased.

‘Hot Seat’ had a particularly interesting storyline. The plot deals with the struggle of a student to get a seat in bus, which was shown in a lighter vein.

The movies had a fresh feeling and the actors, although new to the industry, displayed fine acting. Anita, who had come for the short film festival, was excited about the number of the movies screened.

“The movies seem to be really good. And I think that by providing such a platform for
budding film-makers, Suchitra Film Society is doing a great job. And where else would anyone get to watch 30 movies in a day?” she questions.

Another audience member, Rajat, praises the film-makers for the topics they chose to centre their films around.

“I appreciate the work done by the film-makers. It is nice to see that the City has good talent. And some of the movies are really wonderful,” he expresses.

The ‘Best Short Fiction’ award was given to ‘Palmystery’, which was directed by Hemanth Kumar. The runner up was Kasuppu Innipu, by Srihari Prabaharan.

The audience seemed to enjoy the amateur — and yet interesting — work of these film-makers.