15 Aug 2019
Title: Industrial Visit & Short Film Festival
Date:15-18, August, 2019
Classes Attended: MA Journalism 1 & 3 Sem Students
Number of beneficiaries: 63
Objective: To instill an understanding of film making
The Ninth edition of Bangalore International Short Film Festival (BISFF) was held from 15 August to18 August, 2019. Inaugurated by Sandalwood super star Upendra at Suchitra film society, Banashankari Bangalore, BISFF witnessed its tenth year. The screenings of Indian and International short films were held at three venues - Suchitra Film Society Banashankari, Bangalore International Centre Indiranagar and Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan. The three daylong event began with Nooreh, by Ashish Pandey and ended with Kharvas by Aditya SuhasJambhale.
This year, BISFF received around 3000 submissions spanning across various categories including International, Indian, Karnataka, Animation, non-competition and special packages-pocket films, from around 60 countries; 400 films were screened. The event is run on crowd source funding. Besides screening short films, the festival also showered knowledge through workshops and panel discussions.
On the second day of BISFF, In ‘Master class session’, Mahesh Narayan, Director and editor of “Take off” (Malayalam) was welcomed as guest who guided the young minds on '' Editing the script on the table''. He spoke about the various obstacles that today's film makers go through. "Cinematographers should think in the point of view of the writers to make things easy for the producers and the editors". He also shared his ideas on how to prepare good films. He also expressed that the presence of the director, cinematographer, editor and writer is very crucial while reviewing the rushes. During the interactive session, when asked to comment on the difficulties of YouTube content makers, he answered that “it is the biggest problem today which the whole world is facing. Digital medium is a very big platform for today's youngsters. You have the freedom to prepare the content and throw it on YouTube without any censorship as such. But yes, if you ask about content, you'll have to make sure that you make it short and crispy which will cater to the interests of the viewers. It is therefore important for content makers to be clear about what they want to showcase and represent it as clearly as possible within the time constraints that they have. So be clear and make it clear.”
On the final day of BISFF, at Bangalore International Centre, Indiranagar, Indian media personality, Mr. Prakash Belawadi conducted a workshop on “Story to script, how words become images”. He gave audience idea of how space and time is important for converting a story into a script by using the famous Kannada literature story ‘KalluKaraguvaSamaya’ by Mr. P Lankesh which was also displayed in a film. He opined that a story writer should visualise every scene and write into the book. The session ended with him quoting, “Any masterpiece that explains itself is not at all a masterpiece”.
Geeta, a special educator for special children, said that 'AnamadheyaAppaiyamma', one of the Kannada short films screened was her favourite. Everyone seemed enjoying the festival irrespective of age, nationality & profession. A retired Major General Kaali Prasad said, “I really enjoyed watching the Kannada short film 'Bhoota', because of the interesting plot”.
The Award night and closing ceremony were held together. Mr Ram Prasanth, representative of Suchitra film society and Anand, director of Akashyakalpa conveyed their wishes to all the young film makers. Short films like Five Minutes to Sea by Natalia Mirzoyan, The Boy who wanted to fly by Jorge Muriel and Jimmy Olsson won the best film awards under the International competition category. Under Indian competition section, films like Miyan Ji Ki Daadhi by Amber, Divider by AnandRadhakrishnan, Malai by Rajdeep Paul and SarmisthaMaithi, Anthesti by Pradeep Bawar, Wall by ParasnathGuptha won the best film awards. Under Karnataka competition section films like Kuruli by NateshHegde, Mouna by Bharath and Laacchava by Jai Shankar won the best film awards.
''We crawled, we walked and now we will jump in the coming fest'', AnandVaradaraj, the Artistic Director said while concluding the event.
63 Students of MA Journalism has participated for the film festival
