AIZAWL: Mizoram had its first honest to goodness international short film festival thrown open recently. the festival ends today, September 22.

The 1st Mizoram International Short Film Festival was inaugurated by Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla in a glittering red carpet ceremony at Aijal Club on Thursday evening.
The film festival will see the screening of 82 films from across the globe, including 25 from the State.

Bollywood-famed Gulshan Grover’s internationally acclaimed award winning short film ‘Forbidden’ opened the film festival. It recently won the Best Film Award at the Festival of Globe in San Francisco, California, this August.

Inaugurating the Festival empowered by Mizoram’s New Economic Development Policy (NEDP), Lal Thanhawla expressed his desire to make the film festival for cultural integration in the country. Acclaiming the young and new talents in Mizoram he expressed his hope that it would be worthwhile for them.

Several short films were screened and a workshop conducted by Bollywood Filmmaker Umesh Shukla on Saturday.

The mega festival which is the first of its kind in Mizoram has been jointly organised by Government of Mizoram and Innovations India aimed at promoting the State as a preferred destination for film making and reaching out to the international film makers to showcase the unexplored beauty of the State.

Forbidden is a thriller inspired by a true honour killing of a south Asian American woman, written, directed and produced by Vibha Gulati under her banner Ruhaniyat Films in association with Women’s Voices Now and Everclear Films.

The film has been screened at some of the major international short film festivals across the globe and also won the Best Film Award at the Festival of Globe in San Francisco, California, in August this year.

Apart from Forbidden, the festival has  a lot of short films by talented international filmmakers who are keen on showcasing their creative brilliance via this festival.

The festival, supported by the Mizo Film Forum, is to highlight the filmmaking capabilities of the Mizo filmmakers as a very large number of independent filmmakers in Mizoram have come forward to participate in this mega festival.

Speaking about the proposed film festival, curator of MISFF Captain Rahul Bali said they have already received more than 50 entries from across the world.

He said the festival is an ambitious joint endeavour by the state government and Innovations India aimed at creating a plethora of opportunities for both the filmmakers and the state.

“The festival is sure to provide the much needed platform for the talented independent filmmakers from all across the globe to showcase their craft at this creative confluence. At the same time, it will catapult Mizoram into instant limelight as a preferred destination for making films,” he said.

  Film, Mizoram, Northeast