Pickurflick Indie Film Festival: Global cinema at its best in Delhi

Stuck in a war zone, two brothers are protected by their mother. The boys, however, chase their dream to play a musical instrument they’ve fallen in love with – an Oud. And thus, the two try to overcome their traumatic incidents. This is the story of Arabic animation film, Ayny, which was announced the winner of Best Foreign Animation film in 2016, at the Student Academy Awards.

Ayny will open the Delhi edition of Pickurflick Indie Film Festival – India’s first multi-city offline and online indie film festival for independent filmmakers across the globe. “Most of the big festivals don’t showcase independent films made by young or even established filmmakers. We, therefore, found this platform to promote independent films and help the independent filmmakers showcase their work to a worldwide audience,” says Abhishek Sinha, founder of the festival.

The organisers opened entries in November last year and received 550 films from 50 countries. Out of those, around 100 are being screened across Bengaluru and Delhi – in four categories: shorts, feature, animation and documentary. After a successful Bengaluru edition, 70 films in more than 10 languages — including Spanish, Bengali, Assamese, Russian, Kurdish and Arabic — will be screened in Delhi over the weekend (May 19-May 21). This includes 52 shorts, 7 features, 8 animations and 3 documentaries. There’s a special focus on Spanish or Latin American films.

Wondering how the films were shortlisted? A 5-member jury comprising Anusha Rizvi (director of Peepli Live), Bhaskar Hazarika (director of Kothanodi), Mahendra Jakhar (scriptwriter of Manjhi: The Mountain Man), Sanal Kumar Sasidharan (director of Sexy Durga) and Rao Narendra Yadav (founder-director of Woodpecker International Film Festival) took up the herculean task.

Tathagata Ghosh, director of Riemann – an English short film based on the professional rivalry between two mathematicians, praises such fests. “As a filmmaker, it’s a fantastic experience to see audiences react to your film. And when my film was screened in Bengaluru, this is what happened. People came up to me to ask questions. This is what a filmmaker wants,” says Ghosh. His film will be screened on May 21.

Those who are not free to attend the film fest over the weekend, can catch a select few of these films on the festival website, but only after the fest is over, of course!

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