MUMBAI: The second International Women’s Film Festival (IWFF) will be held in Delhi from 11 – 18 December. India is the second country in Asia, after Japan, to host this featival.

Close to 130 award winning films in various international festival circuits from 30 countries will be showcased at this festival. It will have competitive sections in feature and documentary categories for best director and film.

A special retrospective of movies made by Aparna Sen and Bengali actor turned director Shatabdi Roy’s maiden film Avinetri are the highlights of this festival. As a part of the Indian panorama, it will also have Prema Kranth’s Janmadinam; Ananya Chatterjee’s Dwitiya Paksha; Leena Bajaj’s Shabd and Santana Bardolui’s Adajya. The festival will be flagged off with Sharada Ramanathan’s film Srinagaram. 

Thirteen feature and documentary films from Israel are a part of the international focus of the festival. Caroline Link’s Nowhere in Africa (Oscar nominated for best foreign language film in 2002); Iranian director Niki Karimi’s One Night (awarded as the best director’s award this year at Cannes); Polish director Anny Jadowskiej’s It’s Me Now (Best Polish film) and Cecilia Bartolumi’s Le’Jos De Africa (won several awards in European film festivals) are some of the big entries in this festival.

The festival will even have a ‘Male Voice’ section; where five films will be screened. They are Goutam Ghosh’s Yatra; Buddhadep Dasgupta’s Kaalpurush; Girish Kasaravalli’s Nai Neeralu and Saibal Mitra’s Sanshay.

Shaymali Banerjee is the festival director while veteran actress Madhabi Mukherjee is the chairperson. The jury for the feature film competion is headed by Malti Sahai with Katalin Wajda from Hungary, cultural activist Hasan Imam from Bangladesh and filmmakers from India Nabyendu Chatterjee and Khaled Mohammed.

Leading Bangladeshi writer Daud Haider with Indian actress Mita Vasishth and filmmaker Sajo Sing will judge the competitive section for non-feature films.

According to Shaymali Banerjee, “The objective of this IWFF is to enhance talented woman filmmakers working independently around the world. The festival is a part of women’s empowerment project.”