Film fiesta

With a stellar line-up of films, Jagran Film Festival is back with its ninth edition, all set to travel across 18 countries

Six children from Australia and India come together in Chennai to perform a dance routine. As they get ready for the performance, children along with their families share the challenges they face and the determination it takes to overcome the handicaps of Down’s Syndrome.

Directed by Onir, this Indo-Australian documentary Raising the Bar, traces the tales of love, parenthood and the fight to break free of the stigma that society has enforced on them. The film is one among the 200 movies to be screened next weekend at one of the largest travelling film festivals of India.

The Jagran Film Festival, which has an eclectic mix of genres and languages, continues to create a culture of cinema appreciation. Its ninth edition will bring the best of world cinema to nationwide audiences.

From award-winning international documentary features to undiscovered short films from across the country, the festival will screen movies with diverse narratives and styles. This year, the film festival has received over 3,000 entries from 115 countries. Out of these, 145 best films have been selected to be screened in the festival.

From June 29 to July 3 at Siri Fort auditorium, the festival will screen unseen and unheard films like the world premier of Argentinian film Chachura along with Indian premier of Hung Yi Wu’s On the Waitlist (Taiwan), The Bridge (Brazil), Lilly Within the Clouds (France), Fish (Estonia) to name a few. Remake of 3 Idiots in Mexico, 3 idiotas is another highlight of the festival.

Besides these, the festival will celebrate 20 years of Satya with a special talk session with Ram Gopal Verma after the screening. It will also pay homage to legendary actors Sridevi and Shashi Kapoor.

“With the phenomenal response we received last year, we are determined to travel farther and spread the wonderful stories filmmakers have to tell wider. This year, we have introduced new categories in an effort to be more diverse and inclusive of all genres and topics. The culture of appreciating great films and doing it as a community no matter where we come from, is what the Jagran Film Festival is all about,” says Basant Rathore, Senior Vice President, of Jagran Prakashan.

Unlike other years the festival is ticketed this time. Unable to deal with the rush of people at the auditorium in the last edition, the audience has to register themselves this year.

After completing its Delhi chapter, the festival will travel through Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Meerut, Agra, Gorakhpur, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bhopal, Indore, Ludhiana, Hisar, Raipur, Dehradun and finally conclude in Mumbai in September.