ViBGYOR film fest begins today

Thrissur: The 11th ViBGYOR International Short and Documentary Film Festival also called Mazhavil Mela will begin at the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi here on Wednesday. Allahabad University student leader Richa Singh will inaugurate the seven-day fest at 5.30 pm at Regional Theatre.

The films will be screened at two venues on the Akademi campus starting from 9 am. Thrissur Corporation mayor Ajitha Jeyarajan will preside over the inaugural function while district panchayat president Sheela Vijayakumar will release the ViBGYOR festival book.

Mathias Lafolie (Sweden), Nandan Saxena, Kavita Balum and Paromita Vohra will attend the opening function. Bengali documentary What the Fields Remember directed by Subasri Krishnan, on the Nellie massacre in Assam three decades ago, will be the opening film.

You Can Destroy the Body of Anand Patwardhan and That's My Boy by Akhil Sathyan will also be screened at the inaugural. Organisers said the celebration of cultural diversity was the theme this year. A package Many India's Films is also included.

In the retrospective section will be five works of Paromita Vohra, a filmmaker, writer and curator, who has made several well know films on urban life, popular culture, gender, politics and art. A three-day workshop on digital filmmaking will begin on Thursday for college students and film buffs led by Mr Saxena and Ms Balum.