Beyond Borders: 7-day film bonanza to have offerings from 15 countries

Organised in partnership with the UT Administration, the festival, supported by CITCO, will be hosted at the Tagore Theatre, with additional venues being Piccadilly Square Mall and Chandigarh Club. The inaugural ceremony of the festival will be held on September 26 at 5 pm at Tagore Theatre. The festival will be attended by eminent film personalities like R Balki, Rahul Mittra, Rajat Kapoor, Anurag Basu, Madhur Bhandarkar, Rajit Kapur, Saurabh Shukla, Mukesh Chhabra Brahmanand Singh and Ketki Pandit. According to Harsh Narayan, founder, chairman, and creative director of the festival, the team is engaging with the Punjabi film industry for the festival. There will also be many eminent film personalities from across South Asian nations attending this festival and participation in the entire festival is free. “Chandigarh is the ideal place to organise such a festival, as people are keen to view films of various genres, and an audience from across the region can be part of this seven-day event,” said Devpreet Singh, festival advisor.

The core idea behind the festival and forum, adds Narayan, is that cinema and art in South Asia are inter-connected and nurture each other in sensibility and craft, due to the geographical, linguistic, and historical legacy. The festival, says Narayan, will present South Asian Cinema as a collective creative industry to the world, and help its economic growth. “We also affirm to provide hand-holding support to students, and creative media practitioners and professionals in their journey towards their career goals even after the festival,” he sums up.

Those interested can register for the festival at the following link: http://www.iviff.com/register and have a look at the film festival schedule at iviff.com/schedule.