LIFFT India Filmotsav
& Awards commencesfrom today
Mumbai | September 1, 2017
A 5-day global festival of
Literature, Illusion, Information, Film, Frame, Television & Theatre will
runfrom 1st to 5th Sept 2017 at Fariyas Resort Lonavala,
a popular tourist destination near Mumbai.
The grand opening of the five-day festival to promote and bring the best of films
and new media content by independent, student and professional film makers from
around the world, commenced today at the picturesque location of Lonavala, inaugurated
by acclaimed director Leena Yadav with
the cast & crew of her film “Parched” along with Founder CEO & Festival
Director, Riju Bajaj.
Speaking
on the occasion, Founder
CEO & Festival Director Riju Bajaj elaborates,
“LIFFT India Filmotsav 2017” has been established as a non-profit event to bring together filmmakers from more than 20 countries across the globe
along with Indian & regional directors, producers, technicians, artists and
writers coming forward to participate at a single platform. In fact, the
festival features a record number of fifty-fivedebut
filmmakers showcasing their talent at this world-cine fest. Co- founder of Lifft India, Dr. Anamika Sharma provided all the
support even in absentia. She has exhaustively promoted the fest in America
that helped in getting participation from a lot of international films.” Bajaj
concluded
The
launch was followed by a Q&A session where Leena exclaimed, “It is a huge
honour that the festival has opened with my film. “Parched” truly liberated me.
My film dares to touch upona taboo subject like Sex in our country, but the
fact is that we are sexually repressed and we need to talk about it. The
platform provided by LIFFT will encourage new age filmmakers to work on the
content, which we believe in”.
The 1st
edition of the festival saluted the contribution of actor par excellence Om
Puri with a retrospect of three of his path-breaking films like Govind
Nihlani’s “Ardha Satya”, Ismail Merchant’s “In Custody” & Ashwini
Chaudhary’s “Dhoop”.The late actor’s wife Nandita Puri & his son Ishaan
read out excerpts from his biography “The Unlikely Hero-Om Puri”. The festival
introduced for the 1st time an award dedicated in his name for the
best actor category as a tribute to world cinema.
Ismail
merchant has been conferred
The
festival conferredlegendary producer & director Ismail Merchantwith LIFFT India 2017 lifetime achievement award.Veteran actors Tanuja, Dolly Thakore, Ram Gopal Bajaj
& Kanwaljeet Singh dedicated an award in his name -For The Best Producer. LIFFT
India has also established Music, Editing, Cinematography & Art/Production
Design award categories to honour the contribution of the legends, Khemchand
Prakash, Renu Saluja, V.K.Murthy and Sameer Chanda respectively.
Apart
from showcasing a handpicked line-up of Indian & International feature films,
short films documentaries & Green Films, the festival would also feature Book
launches & Reading sessions, Short Plays, Classical Dance Performances and
Masterclass & Conversations by industry stalwarts like Manoj Bajpayee, Rajit
Kapoor, Hansal Mehta, Vipin Sharma, Mukesh Chabra Vibhu Puri, Vani Tripathi
Tikoo, Rajeev Raghunathan, Rujuta Somen, Sunaina Bhatnagar, Pankaj Tripathi, Pia
Benegal etc.
The festival in its 1st
edition, bringsalong with Hindi Films some regional must-watch films, including
Govind Nihlani’s ‘Ti Ani Atar’ (Marathi), ‘Palyadwasi’ (Marathi), Raja Sen’s
‘Maya Mridanga’ (Bengali), ‘Alifa’ (Assamese), Eh JanamTumhare Lekhe’(Punjabi)
and ‘Aaram Arvu’ (Tamil)among others.
Within
the Children’s Film category, apart from featuring hindi films like ‘Pinti ka
Sabun’ ‘Happy Mother’s Day’&‘Blue Mountain’, the festival would also
showcase films from the foreign languages like ’Odd Squad The Movie’ (English),
‘Big Boy (Russian)’ & ‘Sonic Boom’ (English). To add the happiness quotient
there will be children from NGO’s like Pune-based Shikhshan Gram & Sampark
who would join in to get a taste of this slice of cinema.
About the
Festival- Key Highlights:
·
Literature, Information, Film, Frame,
Television & Theatre awards shall be integral areas of LIFFT INDIA to
interlace various art forms to boost cultural excellence and provide a platform
for the unison of artistes from across the world
·
Lifft India shall extensively explore
marketing possibilities to help independent, student and professional filmmakers
to market their films and future projects in a dedicated space “Filmy Nukkad”
to host informal Film Market. Lifft India provides a supporting bridge of
interaction between the filmmaker and the distributor/exhibitors
·
Lifft India is amongst the very few festivals
in India which has integrated the mix of all the possible genre of filmmaking
meant for theatrical release, television, VOD service, Online Player etc. under
one roof to boost the exchange of ideas and possibilities between the various
film makers who attend the festival
·
Lifft India has also introduced the Film Club
and Satellite or moving film festival concept for itself to achieve the best
outreach and promotions for the films that are part of Lifft India. It will
benefit filmmakers with enhanced exposure to diverse audience. The officially
selected films will be screened at highly commercial auditoriums to provide and
achieve best world-class experience
·
In order to promote theatre and stage actors,
LIFFT India plans to organize an International Theatre Festival from 2018 to be
integrated with the Filmotsav.
·
The festival’s Frame section would have
painting exhibitions by new age painters along with an exhibition of still
photography by veteran photojournalist Fawzan Hussain.
·
Touted to be India’s only
Green Film festival, LIFFT India aims
to use the strength & outreach of films to create global awareness about importance
of ‘Zero Waste’ and ‘Go Green’ concepts to restore and retain the environment
from being destroyed. This year’s edition
introduces Five Films in the categoryof Green Films.
