Guwahati International Documentary Festival begins tomorrow

The first Guwahati International Documentary Film Festival (GIDFF) will begin from tomorrow and documentary films from various countries, including Bulgaria, Australia, Poland, Germany, Canada and Egypt will be screened.
"We organise the biennial Mumbai International Film Festival. We have decided to extend it to other cities, so we are holding this festival for the first time in Guwahati," Films Division Director General Manish Desai said at a press conference here.
The GIDFF, will be held from June 21 to 24. It is being organised jointly by Films Division, a part of Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Dr Bhupen Hazarika Regional Government Film and Television Institute.

"In all, 27 documentary and animation films from across the world will be shown along with some best Indian films. We will also have a special package of six documentaries by local filmmakers," Desai said.
The festival will screen some internationally acclaimed documentaries from Bulgaria, Australia, Poland, Israel, Germany, Canada and Egypt, he added.
Films Division Director Swati Pandey said the festival will be an annual affair from next year and it will be clubbed with Guwahati International Film Festival, to be held for the first time in October this year.

Speaking on the occasion, eminent filmmaker Jahnu Barua said, "India does not have a culture to watch documentary films. We make about 1,000 feature films every year. Same way, we also make about 1,000 short films and documentaries."

On an average, a documentary filmmaker takes about 10 years to make a film after rigorous research, but nobody can see them, he added.
"It is not the loss of the filmmaker, but a loss of the nation. This loss is happening every year and it is unfortunate. We have wasted 70 years of Independence by not realising this. Not just the government, the entire nation has failed to develop some kind of system," Barua said.