The third edition of the Habitat International Film Festival is back with a host of critically acclaimed and award-winning features, shorts and documentaries from around the world

“LOVE, BETRAYAL, passion, regret, vendetta, migration, war, starvation, ambition, loyalty, sacrifice and dedication. Definitely looks like the right ingredients for a sure-shot blockbuster,” says Vidyun Singh, Director, Programmes of Habitat World.

Singh is talking about the upcoming third edition of the Habitat International Film Festival. The festival is back with a fantastic line-up of contemporary world cinema. The selection includes critically acclaimed and award-winning features, shorts and documentaries which are handpicked from the best of 2019.

This year’s edition of the festival opens with Spanish director Pedro Almadovar’s deeply personal movie Pain and Glory.

“Apart from the glimpses of the direction that new cinema is taking two decades into the millennium, and the presence of some of the filmmakers in the vanguard of these developments, there are also two extremely noteworthy retrospective packages that will excite all cinema lovers. A tribute to the legendary Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini to celebrate the centenary of his birth, as well as one to the great Spanish auteur, Pedro Almodovar,” says Sunit Tandon, Director, India Habitat Centre.

A special feature of the HIFF, the Retrospective section, will present the works of Almadovar. The Almadóvar Retrospective will show Dark Habits (1983)What Have I  Done to  Deserve this? (1984), Law of Desire (1987), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) and multiple award-winnner Volver(2006).

HIFF also joins the worldwide celebrations of a yearlong programme of 100 events, in honour of the 100th birth anniversary of Federico Fellini, one of the most influential filmmakers of all times. The milestone Fellini films being screened in this segment include his magnum opus La Dolce Vita (1960), 8 ½ (1963) and the semi-autobiographical Amarcord (1973).

As a conscious decision, the festival will host films by women directors. With diversity at the forefront, the section, handpicks distinct voices, across regions, languages and nationalities, each one driven by a unique and striking aesthetic, which places womens’ stories at the centre. The Ground Beneath My Feet by Marie Kreutzer, Proxima by Alice Winocour, Retrospekt by Esther Rots, Waterproof by Daniela König, are some of them.

The Bafta Shorts 2019, a collection of British short films and short animation nominees from the annual British Academy Film Awards, celebrating innovative and experimental short fiction and non-fiction films and animation will also be screened at the festival.

So, all the cinephiles, block your dates for watching films from across the globe, which push the boundaries of cinematic arts, and reflect on the burning realities of a changing world.

 The festival will be screened at India Habitat Centre on March 13 -22