Auroville Film Festival to begin on Jan 22

PUDUCHERRY: The eighth edition of Auroville Film Festival (AVFF), a biennial film event, will be held from January 22.

Like the previous editions, AVFF 24 will focus on themes of human unity and will feature films across four categories – films by residents of Auroville and the bioregion, films about Auroville and the bioregion, films by students of Auroville and the bioregion, and international films on the theme of human unity.

The festival will feature 22 films by Aurovillians, one film on Auroville, one film by a student of Auroville and 15 films on the theme of human unity.

The festival aims at showcasing films that attempt to foster a deeper understanding of the aspirations of Auroville through a creative engagement with the medium of cinema, as well as turning film viewing from a passive activity into an intimate dialogue between artist and audience. It will screen films that reflect the creative, experimental, and spiritual research Auroville is dedicated to.

The event is a project of the Multimedia Centre/Cinema Paradiso (MMC/CP), which holds daily screenings of films from around the world at the MMC auditorium, a 124-seater, state-of-the-art facility in the Town Hall area of Auroville.

The jury includes Ezhilmathy, producer and costume designer for Modern Love Chennai (Amazon Prime), Premendra Mazumder, vice- president of the Federation of Film Societies of India and secretary Asia Pacific section of the International Federation of Film Societies, Sivakumar Mohanan, founder secretary of Chennai Film Society and visiting faculty at Loyola College Chennai, and L V Prasad Film and TV Academy; director and producer.

There are a host of other events alongside the festival including a poster exhibition, where posters of the participating films will be displayed, an art installation by artists in Auroville, a live music concert by artists in Auroville, a panel discussion on the role of cinema in developing human unity and a filmmaking challenge, where participants write, shoot, edit and present a film within 48 hours.