Addressing the mediapersons here today, Shri VS Kundu, Director General, Films Division and Director, MIFF – 2014 said, ‘MIFF has an enormous goodwill among independent documentary and short film makers and the 13th edition has been reoriented in tandem with the stakeholders.’ MIFF intends to attract more and more of producers as well as finance providers to promote a documentary culture in the country, he added. MIFF – 2014 has received 793 entries from 34 countries. Of these 588 are for the National Section and 205 for the International Section.
The oldest and largest international film festival for the non-feature and animation films in Asia, MIFF-2014 brings a lot of valuable content for film makers and cineastes. Apart from best director, awards have been introduced for producer, cinematographer, editor, sound recordist and animator. Awards for the most innovative film (named after Pramod Pati) and most popular film of the festival have also been instituted taking the total number of awards to 32 from 22 in the MIFF 2012. A veteran Indian documentary film maker will be honoured with V Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award. MIFF will distribute cash awards worth Rs. 55 lac apart from Golden Conches, trophies and certificates to the winners in different categories.
The MIFF-2014 will also have a number of special events. Apart from hosting internationally acclaimed pitching forum ‘Good Pitch Squared’ partnered by BRITDOCS and Sundance Institute Documentary Program, MIFF will partner with Cinekids, Amsterdam and Lennep Media to hold a ‘Dutch Children’s film festival-cum-students film workshop’ and with Action Aid India for a film festival on ‘Our City : Ourselves’ in the suburbs, as run-up events to the MIFF. The festival directorate has also decided to hold parallel screening of national competition films in metros and important cities, from February 3 to 9, 2014, for the benefit of film lovers who are unable to travel to Mumbai for the MIFF.
The festival will have funders’ talk, docwok, panel discussions, directors’ adda, retrospectives, homages, curated film packages including animation, seminar, workshops and master classes to make MIFF-2014 a rich and wholesome experience for film makers, students and cinephiles. The festival will pay tribute to the acclaimed documentary film maker, Peter Wintonick who passed away on November 18, 2013, with the screening of his select works.
