India on screen

After the successful Habitat International Film Festival in March, India Habitat Centre is all set to organize Pan India Habitat Film Festival from May 5 to May 14. The festival will include 60 features, documentaries, and short films in 17 languages, showcasing the best of contemporary Indian cinema.

Apart from Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, Gujarati, Marathi cinema, among others, the festival will also screen Kumaoni film for the first time.

Moreover, some films will have their national and Delhi premieres at the festival for the first time. The national premiers include the Malayalam filmMeghdoot/The Cloud Messenger,a contemporary narrative of reincarnation about two lovers meeting in the present day after centuries of longing, directed by Rahat Mahajan, and two Bengali films: Sujit Kumar Pyne’s Meghbari, a story about two lovebirds and their journey of love, marriage, and divorce set against the backdrop of a mountain resort they hoped to call home someday, and Aritra Sen’s Ghore Pherar Gaan/The Homecoming Song,about Tora and her complicated relationship within her married life, a new relationship, and what she chooses.

Delhi premiers include Tora’s Husband, an Assamese film by award-winning filmmaker Rima Das, a reflection on life, love, and grief in uncertain times; Gautham Ramachandran’s Tamil filmGargi, which tells the story of a young school teacher’s journey to prove her father’s innocence with the help of a juvenile advocate who has never even seen the interiors of a court hall; and Arivu Mattu Guruvu/The Word and The Teacher, a multilingual film by Prashant Pandit, that revisits an age that pioneered the transmission of information at the birth of modernity, from today’s post-truth world.

 To mark the birth centenary of Mrinal Sen, the pioneer of the New Cinema Movement in India, the festival will screen a small retrospective of some of his seminal films, including Khandhar, Ek Din Pratidin, and Ek Din Achanak.

Documentary films such as the celebrated All That Breathes by Shaunak Sen, Colours of Life by Praveen Morchhale, The Show Must Go On by by Divya and Jall Cowasji, and Mask Art of Majuli by Utpal Borpujari will also be screened.

The festival will also hold memorial screenings of some well-loved directors and actors who passed away in the last few months – director Pradeep Sarkar, actor Satish Kaushik and, most recently, theatre and film actor Uttara Baokar.

“It is a wonderful feeling to be back with the 15th Habitat Film Festival the way it has always been. A 10-day celebration of the Best of Pan-Indian cinema. Indian cinema has surely but steadily established its rightful space in world cinema and acclaim and awards are now becoming the norm rather than an exception,” says Vidyun Singh, Creative Head Programmes at India Habitat Festival.

When: May 5 to May 15

Where: India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road