Film entries flooding in from across the globe, organisers of the festival hope it will be a success.
Sachin Khanna, as an actor has been a part of theatre, television, short-films and documentaries. When this Navi Mumbaikar conceived the idea of organising an international film fest, the idea was to give people a chance to enjoy films made by creative minds from different parts of the world. Aiming high, he wishes to make the fest one of a global repute.
“Unlike Mumbai, neither have there been events in the past to give exposure to people to showcase their talent in film-making nor to let them enjoy films that show innovation and creative thinking. So, I decided to organise a Navi Mumbai International Film Fest (NMIFF),” said Khanna who is the chairman of the core committee.
The three-day fest, that will be organised in the first week of February, will see a vast number of films of different genres from all over the world. Student shorts, professional shorts and feature films are the main categories.
The first two categories include short films, AD films, animation films, documentaries, music videos and social awareness films. Khanna expected only a few entries considering that it is a new fest, but was surprised as a lot of entries started coming in.
“Till now we have a total of 150 films and we expect to have around 300 before the deadline. We extended the deadline to December 31 because we started getting a lot of entries,” he said. From Navi Mumbai, there are around 15 film entries. The planning for the event started in July after Khanna approached his mentor Ashok Purang, a well-known director, writer who is also the director and core committee member of NMIFF was the creative producer for Filmistan, a 2013 movie that won the national award.
Although Navi Mumbai has seen immense development over the years, there are not many avenues for theatre and cinema, feels Purang.
“These are aspects that shape the culture of a place and thus have to be given more importance. Our aim is to give a platform to local talent and expose them to international cinema,” said Purang adding, “Majority of the entries are of good standard and the jury will have a tough task with elimination of entries.”
Khanna asserts that unlike other film fests the organisers are doing a great deal to promote and publicise the films and filmmakers on various online platforms. Since short films are always ‘small money and much hard work’, the promotion will help them in establishing themselves as independent film-makers.
“NMIFF is on the lookout for good sponsors as an event of this scale cannot be a success without adequate financial assistance. It would be great if reputed companies would come forward and associate themselves with us in order to make Navi Mumbai the new hub of cinema,” said Khanna, who resides in Belapur.
For film buffs
The three-day fest, that will be organised in the first week of February, will see a vast number of films of different genres from all over the world. Student shorts, professional shorts and feature films are the main categories.
The first two categories are short films, AD films, animation, documentaries, music videos and social awareness films.
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