Asia’s largest content creation festival promises excitement
The eighth edition of the India Film Project Content Creation festival will see a galaxy of film-makers, writers, poets, composers, storytellers, designers, musicians, editors, photographers, cinematographers, vloggers and others converge at the NSCI on October 13 and 14 to initiate interesting conversations and attend workshops and screenings. The festival will conclude by showcasing the award- winning films from the flagship 50 Hour Film Project and a ceremony where jury members Sudhir Mishra, Milan Luthria and R.S. Prasanna will felicitate the winning teams.
The festival began seven years ago with a one-of-a-kind 50-hour filmmaking challenge; today, it has evolved into bringing together other forms of art—primarily writing, designing and storytelling. This year, 35,000 participants from over 20 countries and 300 cities submitted over 1700 short films; the highest participation the festival has seen to date.
This season, the festival will focus on two formats
1 The 3C’s of content creation: Creating ideas, books, music, films and screenplays, collaborating through interactive knowledge sharing sessions and celebrating curated pieces of content across films, literature, music and digital media.
2 The celebrated 50-Hour Filmmaking Challenge: The Challenge has over 35,000 filmmakers and 10,000 minutes of short story content generated. Each team had to create a short film based on the chosen theme, with zero restrictions on choice of location, equipment and actors. Categories include Professional Filmmaking, (on the theme titled ‘A Story of Change’), Amateur (Theme - ‘Experience Change’) and Mobile (Theme - ‘Prevention is Better, Cure is Bitter’).
“From 15-year-old students and lawyers to pilots, the diversity in participation this year has been phenomenal,” says Nikhil Taneja, Creative Festival Director, India Film Project. The winners in the professional and amateur categories of this challenge receive epic DJI Drones.
IFP’s 8th edition also promises insightful conversations with the likes of Bhuvan Bam—one of India’s most popular YouTubers who will talk about the future of comedy in India, author Ashwin Sanghi, filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane, musician Raghu Dixit, screenwriter Juhi Chaturvedi, and columnist Aseem Chhabra.
Jury member Sudhir Mishra who has biggies like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (1983), Chameli (2003), Traffic Signal (2007), Yeh Saali Zindagi (2011) and Daas Dev (2018) to his credit, says, “You will never be in the ideal situation you are looking for. You will only get better with each film you make, so don't wait for the correct timing, correct project or correct circumstances — just make a film.”
Milan Luthria who has directed movies like Kachche Dhaage (1999), Chori Chori (2003), Deewaar (2004), Taxi No. 9211 (2006), Hattrick (2007), Once Upon a Time in Mumbai (2010), The Dirty Picture (2011), Once Upon a Time in Mumbai, Dobara (2013) and Baadshaho (2017), says, “Deserving talent just needs an opportunity. In the age of internet and smart phones, the world has become a smaller place for aspiring filmmakers to showcase their work. But with cut throat competition, opportunities like India Film Project shouldn’t be wasted but something that one should make the most of.”
RS Prassana, who has directed films like Kalyana Samayal Saadham (2013) and Shubh Mangal Saavdhan (2017), feels that the mantra of ‘Just Shoot’, always works. He believes that the best stories emerge under pressure, that deadlines are real and while the whiners whine about no budget, bad light, bad equipment, poor resources, the doer has already shot the film and is onto his second draft of the sound mix!