New Delhi: March 12, 2012

The BRICS Youth Short Film Festival entitled “FILM DIALOGUE- 2012” will be held at the Russian Centre of Science and Culture (RCSC), New Delhi, from March 13 to 16, 2012.

The event will be a festival-cum-competition of the youth short films, jointly organized by the RCSC and the Citizens’ Film Forum (CFF) with the support of the Embassies of Russia, Brazil, China and South Africa.

The festival is timed to the BRICS Summit, which will take place in the Indian Capital on March 28-29, and is aimed at promoting the development of cultural ties between the participants of BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The RCSC is planning to make the event an annual feature.

The films to be screened consist of documentaries, fiction and animated films, made from 2009 to 2012 by the directors under the age-group below 30 years.

The Opening Ceremony of the festival is on March 13, 2012 at 6. 00 p. m. The screening of films will take place from 7. 00 to 9. 00 p.m. on March 13, and from 6. 00 to 9. 00 p. m. on March 14 and 15. The Award-Giving Ceremony will be on March 16 at 6. 00 p.m.

In four months, the organizers received 108 films in nine languages. Majority of films were presented by India. According to Vimal Mehta, Secretary of CFF, films have come from Delhi, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai (Vashi), Calcutta, Chennai, Pune, Chandigarh, as well as cities such as Bhubaneswar, Solapur, Aligarh, Gurgaon, Noida, and Ghaziabad. For young film-makers from the provinces, it is a rare opportunity to get an exposure to an international audience and a chance to get selected by an international Jury.

The Committee of Representatives of the RCSC, New Delhi, CFF, as well as independent experts from the Federation of Film Societies of India has selected 29 films to be screened, four of which are Russian.

The opening film will be “Enmesh” by Ainur Askarov (25). The movie, shot by the film studio “Bashkortostan” in 2010, is autobiographical and narrates the story of a village boy, who dreams to get to the show of the Bollywood film “Disco Dancer” in the local House of Culture.

Notable among the animated films is “The Gift” (2010) by the 22-year-old Michael Dvoryankin. The film is on the shy Soviet school boy trying to congratulate his classmate on the International Women’s Day.

The other Russian films include “Paria” (2011) by Anton Tayshihin and “Children of the Sun” (2011) by Sophia Geveyler.

The documentary film “Syncope” (2011) on a blind pianist by Julia Byvsheva and the cartoon film “Transgression” (2011) by Natalia Malgina, based on Anton Chekhov’s story, will be shown outside the competition category.

The Indian films to be screened at the festival include “Shunya” (Fiction) by Jitendra Dubey, “Unexpected”, a silent black-and-white short film by Sapunti Saikia, “White Dirt”, a documentary drama by Venkatesh Kumar. G, “Love Never Dies”, a short feature film by Sharad Arora, and others.

“We have a difficult but very interesting task—to create a platform for the communication of young directors from the BRICS countries. The movies will help the young people of our countries to become closer and clearer to each other”, said  Fyodor Rozovskiy, Director, RCSC.

According to the organizers of the film festival, the films reflect the concerns of today’s youth on such problems as social inequality, indifference and cynicism of the society, drug addiction and incurable diseases. The fate of the disabled people, senior citizens, orphans and single mothers have become the themes of many films in the competition.

The Jury members will comprise representatives of the Embassies of Russia, Brazil, China, South Africa, as well as representatives of the Indian film industry.

The selected movies, longer than 25 minutes, and full-length feature films from Brazil, China and South Africa will be screened in the non-competitive section of the festival.

 

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