New Delhi: Eighteen Hindi films at the first Imphal International Short Film Festival in Manipur could not be screened for the general audience due to a ban imposed by rebel groups since 2000.
The films were screened only for the four jury members for competition section. “We missed out such a wonderful opportunity to screen some of the finest Hindi films. Leaving the Hindi sections, we screened 15 international and 29 regional films to the audience. We funded few films to be produced to the participating filmmakers and hope to make the 2nd edition a great event where we have more regional and international films,” says festival director Mohen Naorem.
The organisers have decided not to screen Hindi films from next year unless anything positive happens.
“Unfortunately we won’t accept Hindi films submission as we feel it is discrimination for participating directors by not screening their movies to public. There has been no response from the government in this regard,” Mohen told PTI.
He says filmmakers and cable operators had started an agitation some years ago, but failed to lift the blanket ban on screening of Hindi movies and other form of Hindi related entertainment programmes in the state.
The four-day festival last month saw movie lovers thronging the Rupmahal Theatre to enjoy films from countries like Spain, Italy, Bangladesh, Iran, Poland and of Indian regional languages like Malayalam, Telugu, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi and Kanada.
There were 18 awards for grabs. The best film award was bagged by “Nishaptham” while “Pahela Boisakhi” won the best documentary award.
A special mention award was given to “LOC…a Playground”. the film bagged the award as best film on national integration.
Ten films were also selected to represent Imphal Film Festival in international film festivals.
The opening film of the festival was Saptaswa Basu’s “The Forlorn” that has Dadasaheb Phalke winner Soumitra Chatterjee in a lead role. (PTI)