The festival in New Jersey to showcase best of Gujarati movies; provide platform for international collaboration
For the first time ever, a plethora of Gujarati films will be screened for a global audience. The International Gujarati Film Festival (IGFF), to be held in New Jersey on August 3-5, will showcase a collection of popular Gujarati films and also premier the first Gujarati science fiction film.
Umesh Shukla, festival director, said they wished to target American audiences including Gujaratis settled there. "We want to showcase the wonderful movies being made in Gujarati. It will help generate interest in our films among American directors, filmmakers and producers and we can also look at collaborations in the future," said Shukla, an acclaimed writer and director of films such as Oh My God and 102 Not Out, among others.
The festival will screen films of various genres. Apart from full-length features, it will also showcase documentaries and short films.
"The idea behind such a festival is to help improve the content of Gujarati films and also connect and set up network with US distributors so that Gujarati films can be released in the US at the same time as in India," said Kaushal Archarya, an organiser. He added that various workshops will also be held to enable collaboration with US actors, directors and other professionals and to help filmmakers raise more funds.
Through a series of awards, the film festival will also give filmmakers an opportunity to improve their knowledge of international cinematic trends and explore new genres in the Gujarati film industry.
The organisers have so far received 34 entries for the festival, of which 25 are feature films, four documentaries and five short films. Some of the films to be screened include Oxygen, Reva, Ratanpur and Dhh.
Jay Vasavada, a jury member and organiser of the IGFF, said: "IGFF has a single goal – to show that Gujarati cinema has a future of creating scripts and standing shoulder to shoulder with any other film industry."
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