1st Edition of PickUrFlick Indie Film Festival comes to a close

The 1st edition of the 3-day PickUrFlick Indie Film Festival (PIFF) 2017 at the Instituto Cervantes concluded on 21st May, 2017 with the screening of over 16 multi-lingual films and an award ceremony felicitating 12 winners.

The closing film was WWII German feature, Hore Die Stille (Hear The Silence) by Ed. Ehrenburg which won the best feature film award and best cinematography award.

National Award Winner Jaicheng Jai Dohutia was awarded the best director for Haanduk by Sanal Kumar Sasidharan (Sexy Durga).

Anirban Guha and his wife Sinjini Sengupta, won the best screenplay award for Elixir. This drama filled Bengali short has been to Cannes International Film Festival 2016, and has also won Best Short Film award in Boston Kaleidoscope Film Festival 2016.

Siddharth Murjani, was awarded the Emerging talent of the year as an actor/writer for 3 of his films (Menage, Riemann, Dealer).

Ending the award ceremony Abhishek Sinha, the founder of PickUrFlick.com said “It’s been an amazing experience and this marks the culmination of 1st edition of PickUrFlick indeed. PIFF will come back with more diverse global films next year”.

64th National Award Winner for best feature film Haanduk, Jaicheng Jai Dohutia said “As a filmmaker it is very difficult to make independent films on such issues like insurgency. I have always wanted to bring out things which are not audible. I portrayed this issue in my own visual way. I have always been terrorized by insurgency since childhood; I know families who have been affected by insurgernts. The traumatization has affected the locals so much, that they have muted their voice, they think its okay to have such issues. It has been a history, no one dared to bring this on a public platform, this is journey for me, it has been a difficult process for me to bring in the real story into the mainstream cinema. To bring this sensitive issue, I tried to portray it in a natural way to not face major consequences.”

Anirban Guha and his wife Sinjini Sengupta who has won multiple awards for Elixir said “Independent cinema is coming in because given the digital market, given the internet, in the current of time, people spend time looking at the phone screen, if independent film can actually tap that space in the viewers mind then perhaps that has opened up an entirely a new market in to this mainstream cinema, this is a parallel field that is opening up”

Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, also a jury member who awarded the winners at PIFF talking about today’s independent cinema said “Taking in context, Indie cinema in India is growing specially after Court, Thithi and Kothanodi. and of course my film Sexy Durga and it is getting the recognition across the world and people are coming out with new films. Even though we say India is secondary, but we have a diverse culture and different languages. We learn about the states, the country, the culture, the languages through these films. Festival like these are a good medium for filmmakers to bring in new content and real stories. If filmmakers add commercial values to their independent films, it’s not independent cinema. Truly independent filmmakers don’t care about  success of the film, after making the film, they don’t care about the audience choice, they only make films from which they are inspired, where they are getting some kind of vibe from the society, they don’t feel that if we make the issue a subject, people will reject it. Independent cinema is still emerging, new filmmakers will come and grow, it will definitely become an association and people will be connected more today.”

The festival witnessed 2 World Premieres,  5 Asian Premieres and 6 Indian Premieres.This edition screened 70 films over 4 categories in more than 10 languages. 52 shorts, 7 features, 8 Animations and 3 documentaries spread over 23 Spanish films, 14 Silent Films, 7 Hindi Films, 4 Bengali Films, Golden Oscar winning Arabic film , National Award winning Assamese film and Nepali, Persian, German, French, Russian and Kurdish film. The Spotlight country for this edition was Spain as special focus is on Spanish/Latin American films. 30+ films from Spain/Latin America were screened at the festival.

WINNERS AT PIFF 2017

1.Best feature

HÖRE DIE STILLE (HEAR THE SILENCE)

2.Best Director (Feature)

JAICHENG JAI DOHUTIA

3.Best Short Film

RENOVABLE (RENEWABLE)

4.Best Director (Short)

JON GARAÑO & JOSE MARI GOENAGA

5.Best Documentary

Netra by N. Ravindran (Was screened at the Bangalore edition)

6.Best Director (Documentary)

HARJANT GILL  (SENT AWAY BOYS)

7.Best Animation

JOB, JORIS & MARIEKE (OTTO)

8.Best Animation (DIRECTOR)

AHMAD SALEH

9.Best Cinematography

HÖRE DIE STILLE (HEAR THE SILENCE)

10.Best Screenplay

ELIXIR

11.Best Editing

CAMPEON (CHAMPION)

12.Emerging Talent of the year

Siddharth Murjani, actor writer, 3 of his films at PIFF