With 67 entries from countries including the US, Britain, Canada, Israel, Indonesia, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Australia and Nepal besides India, the festival will travel across 25 venues in India and four South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) countries Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bhutan over a period of five months.
The mega event will culminate in May this year.
An organiser of the festival said, “The festival’s uniqueness lies in the fact that the audience watches and rates each film through a participatory rating process. This approach goes a long way in familiarising people with persons living with disabilities and also encourages filmmakers to tell their stories in a an sensitive yet engaging manner”.
Some of the places where the festival will travel to in India are the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), AYJ National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped and SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai, Tezpur University in Assam and Manipal Institute of Communication, Manipal University, in Karnataka.
The film festival was launched by Delhi-based NGO Brotherhood in 2003.
The eighth edition of the fest will be launched by Brotherhood, the United Nations Information Centre for India and Bhutan (UNIC), Unesco, the National Trust, which functions under the ministry of social justice and empowerment, and the Asian Academy of Film and Television (AAFT).
Supported by a humanitarian cause, the films being screened at the festival are intended to portray ethical concerns merged with the cultural diversity.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 14th, 2011.
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