Four-day festival on cities and cinema

A film festival will bring filmmakers and academicians in dialogue with each other on cinema and the urban experience, starting Thursday. It is called The Urban Lens Film Festival.

“Works from the recent and distant past, films that look at the city, and the urban conditions post the pandemic are part of the festival,” says Subasri Krishnan, who is the lead of IIHS (Indian Institute for Human Settlements) Media Lab and is part of the programming team of the festival.

“The selection was based on what was emerging in India and globally, in fiction and non-fiction. Our idea is not only to screen films but also generate conversations,” she adds.

In its ninth edition, the festival will see more fiction feature films, and also host two exhibitions featuring different media forms that people in the city are engaging with, she says.

The festival will open on February 16 with the screening of ‘Ariyippu’, a Malayalam film by Mahesh Narayanan, at Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Defence Colony, Indiranagar. Between February 17 and 19, 16 movies, including Bengaluru-based film ‘Happy Birthday’ by Faisal C S and Nabina Chakraborty, ‘I.D.’ by Kamal KM, ‘Aise Hee’ by Kislay, and Oscar-nominated film ‘All that Breathes’ by Shaunak Sen, will be showcased at IIHS, Bengaluru City campus, Sadashivanagar.

*Full schedule on urbanlens.iihs.co.in