Siliguri International Short Film Festival
SIliguri, India
Film Making is an art and it needs more patience and determination to recreate your ideas to a motion picture. Films Festivals although are typically annual events, they acknowledge various genre of films, mostly from across the globe and encourage people engaged in cinema. They also provide an opportunity for unknown filmmakers to get their movies in front of a real live audience and to have their films reviewed by professional critics. Filmmakers whose movies get accepted into a festival also get valuable press attention and exposure to prospective agents and buyers, not to mention a sometimes sizeable cash award if they win.
From time immemorial, films have played a very important part in bringing people of varying backgrounds together and entertaining them. But, most of the times, the hard work behind making these fields go unnoticed and therefore film festivals started all over the world.
Venice Film Festival is the oldest one in the world, there are two other prestigious Film Festivals of Cannes and Berlin. Although the main crux came from international countries, India also has its very own set of Film Festivals in accordance to different states. Stating a few would be, Bangalore Film Festival 1996, Kolkata Film Festival 1995, Mumbai Film Festival 1990 and many more.
Siliguri is situated at the base of the Himalayan Mountains in the plains of Darjeeling District beside river Mahananda. It is the 2nd largest city in West Bengal and is also known as the Gateway to the North-East. The strategic location of the place makes sure that travelers to North-East India have to pass through this city.
Siliguri is not a very old city, but it ranks in the 19th number amongst 35 places to visit in West Bengal. Being a cosmopolitan city, it shelters a wide number of people with varying cultures and languages, along with a few tribal populations. Although the common language spoken in Siliguri is Bengali; Hindi, English, Nepali, Marwari, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Assamese, Rajbangshi, Tibetian and many more varieties of linguistic people reside together.
Not only these, but the entire region of Siliguri is also famous for 3 T‘s namely: Tea, Timber, and Tourism. There are 45 tea gardens to spread over the blocks of the sub-division. Two important adjacent areas – Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary, Baikunthapur contribute a lot to the microclimate of the region. It also has the best communication network along with the nearest railway station being NJP (New Jalpaiguri). Bagdogra Airport is the only airport in the distance of 12km which caters to the needs of Sikkim.
Talking about films, the quintessential Barfi, directed by Anurag Basu, starring Priyanka Chopra, Ranbir Kapoor, Ileana D’Cruz, Ashish Vidyarthi, Saurabh Shukla, Jishu Sengupta, Rupa Ganguly had been shot in Darjeeling, also known as The Queen of Hills which also falls under the North-East region. There are also plenty of regional films that are shot in or nearby this place, thus making it a hub for every type of genre!