Lucknow – The City of Nawabs is all set for 2015 edition of Shaan-e-awadh International Film Festival. The festival aims to showcase the best of the latest World and Indian Cinema, and to encourage filmmakers.
Ashwani Singh, along with his dedicated team have already set the stage of this eclectic film festival, which has attracted the viewers in the previous editions. As a response of their handwork, the festival have received very interesting entries from all around the globe. Ashwani told ” I am very enthusiastic about the movies, which has been selected to be showcased in the festival. The selected movies deals with the various social topics and will provide a unique point of view.”
Apart from a terrific line-up of feature, documentary, animation and short films, this time the Film Festival comes with workshops, master classes and panel discussions with filmmakers from India and overseas.
Here are few movies from the official selection of Shaan-e-awadh International Film Festival 2015.
The Mural | Unites States | Docu
‘The Mural’ follows the stories of several artists with developmental disabilities from non-profit thearcsf.org as they work together with a group of civic artists from freespace.io to paint a wall that aims to erase barriers.
Triangle of Happiness | Denmark | Short
Hanne and Carsten are desperately trying to keep up with the illusion of a happy family life to their nosy neighbours. They used be just like everyone else in suburbia, but the financial crises hit the family hard. To be able to pay the endless stream of bills, they have sold everything they owned. But how do you keep up with the illusion of a happy life in times of crisis. Financial crisis.
Aai | India | Animation
Aai (a Mother) is a film about a mother’s unconditional love for her son, the film is her perspective of having a baby and watching her son grow up, and everything that happens in the middle. The Film is set up in India and spawns over several years and several generation of one family. Aai is a single layer, single take hand drawn animation that depicts the life of an average single mother in India.
Muftnosh | India | Short
Muftnosh is based on a Saadat Hasan Manto tale about the different kinds of freeloaders that cigarette smokers encounter. Narrated beautifully in Urdu this Black & White film successfully recreates the old world charm of pre- partition India. The film tries to do full justice to the faintly sarcastic tone of Manto’s writings.
In The Lap of Ganga | India | Short
This is a story about a poor family comprising-two brother Chotu (8) and Dipu (11), their father Ramu (a poor rickshaw puller) and their mother Phulwa. Chotu and Dipu are left with no option but to earn their livelihood by begging on the Ghats of Varanasi. Both beg the whole day and at the end of the day their duty is to write on a board how much they managed to earn the whole day. His mother supports education but father think education doesn’t matter for the Survival.
A Bohemian Musician | India | Docu
A Bohemian Musician, a short documentary portray the life of “Keshav Lal” who has worked with legendary composers such as Laxmikant- Pyarelal and makers like V. Shantaram . Fate bought him to streets of Pune where he lived with his wife and together they played music to sustain their livelihood. The story is about the power of hope and optimism; one of the biggest assets of human life. It also Portray the strong bond between husband and wife which remains unscathed even in the most adverse situation.
Mar Blindado | Venezuela | Short
The sentry box in a bank holds within its walls a man and his story. Inside that dark and reduced space reality is wasted away by the surge of time. Layer-by-layer new sensations, situations and visions are unveiled. The closer we get, the more we realize in truth how far away we are from discovering the contradictions of this man, held in the shadow of this shelter turned prison.
Life in Metaphors | India | Feature
Life in metaphors, journey in to the world of the master film maker, with an urge to understand the language, grammar, and the core purpose of storytelling through the medium of cinema.
Sprint to the Past | Russia | Short
The film tells the story of the most beautiful sport – academic rowing. It is about the three friends, their memories about sporting rivalry in the early 1980’s and about the difficult situation in sport in our days. The main idea of the film is not only to show the rowing but also to understand the feeling of the main hero, to show the relationship between the characters, to show the situation in sport in our times, that situation is typical not only in sport but in many other spheres of life in Russia. Very good words of Sergey (one of the main characters) – “It worked out like that! “Also reflects the situation in the life of our country in our times.
Whale Valley | Iceland | Short
The film shows a pure love story between two brothers who live in a remote Icelandic fjord with their parents.When the younger brother a little boy witnesses a life or death moment involving his big brother it sets in motion the possibility of either a great tragedy or a turning point to better times in the brothers’ lives.
Ineffaceable |Belgium | Short
Manu, 20 years old, escape from the psychiatric hospital where he is recovering. Therefore, he has only one idea in mind: start back the graffiti’s which he has a vital need… But, soon, Manu learns that some of its prisons have neither doors nor bars.
Just in Time | Argentina | Short
Lionel and Andrés are travelling to a soccer match. As Andrés is concerned about labor issues, Lionel lives in his world of comfort. The appearance of Alan will put their relationship up to conflict, and the arrival on time for the match is going to be jeopardised.
Listen | Denmark | Short
A foreign woman in a burqa brings her young son to a Copenhagen police station to file a complaint against her abusive husband, but the translator assigned to her seems unwilling to convey the true meaning of her words. A tense, diamond-hard film about cultural isolation and bureaucratic ignorance.
Walls | Spain | Docu
If walls could speak, what would they say about their neighbors? A day in the life of Mr. Istvan and Ms. Magdi, neighbors for many years, is narrated by the building of Budapest where both live. The walls surrounding them reveal their small passions, stories, and routines.
Keechadpanti | India | Animation
Half knowledge is always dangerous as they say. This saying turns out true when an political party worker on one fine peaceful morning realizes that their party’s main leaders statue has been defaced. An emergency meeting is called by all the senior most party members. Even before thinking twice they point fingers on the rival neighbouring political party and in the process they stone their office. The whole situation gets so much out of control that emergency is declared in the state and the military has to be called which results in mass destruction and enormous human genocide , This film satirically underlines murky side of Indian socio political system.
WUT | Spain | Short
Wut is a courageous rottweiler trained to obey his master’s orders. What Wut does not know is that his master is one of the Nazi soldiers assigned to occupied France during World War II.
Potly | India | Short
The Film portrays the story of honesty, human emotions and traditions. It is about a poor girl names “Potly”, who belongs to a very small desert village from Rajasthan, India. She is happy in her own world, but one fine day she meets with an accident. There she finds something strange and after that her efforts shows us the real value of honesty and humanity, which is neither dependent on poor nor rich nor on educated or illiterate.
Zepo | Spain | Animation
Time ago, a winter morning, a little girl went out looking for firewood, she went away from home and came across a blood trail… she followed it.
The Parisian | Australia | Short
Love, responsibility and the need for independence come to a head when a young Arab Muslim woman decides to embark on a life very different to the one imagined for her by her family. Their response is very different to the one she imagined.
Shackle | India | Feature
In the middle of Thar Desert of Rajasthan, there was a village surrounded by its own rituals, Taboos and social obligations. There, any dilution in the blood due to inter-cast marriages resulted in violence. Boys were allowed to get girls from other community as there brides & due to this their own community girls were aging. Then the leaders decided something weird, as per village’s new law, aging single girls were forced to marry boys of their children’s age. Their belief was this way daughters of their community won’t go outside & they can get girls from outside of their community, but kids like Kesar (11 Yrs) & young girls like Abeera (26 Yrs) became victims & they lost their childhood & seem of happily married to a suitable arch respectively. This is the film “Saankal” all about.
Dam 999 | India | Feature
John Brown as the Mayor of the city decides to build a new dam to replace the century old dam built by his great grandfather during the colonial days in India to avoid its potential threat on 2.5million lives. Wide protest against the evacuation costs his life. His son-in-law, a corrupt politician, becomes the next mayor and announces the inauguration of the new dam, which he has built without following the safety measures. Shankaran, an astrologer predicts about a possible disaster on the inauguration day. A group of mariners joined together by destiny decide to fight it out to avoid the disaster and save the mankind. The movie moves towards a thrilling climax through Nine Characters, Nine moods and a dam of emotions.
We Can’t Live Without Cosmos | Iceland | Animation
Two cosmonauts, two friends, try to do their best in their everyday training life to make their common dream a reality. But this story is not only about the dream.
Estella | Cuba | Short
Estela (52) lives alone and avoids contact from the outside world. A small act of humanity makes her break into her neighbour’s house who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. During her time there, Estela rekindles her childhood and experiences an unexpected moment of intimacy, not, however, without leaving unscathed.
Wonderful Birthday | India | Short
It is Abhishek birthday and he has called his friend at home. His parents are not there. Friends chit chat with each other. When they decide to cut cake. Somebody knocks at the door. Its a worker who is working at a near by site who has come to ask for some water. Her daughter is also with him. Birthday boy Abhishek sees that the girl is staring at the cake and get to know that she is hungry. Abhishek call them in and ask the girl to cut the cake. Girl cuts the cake and is happy.
Waiting for the time | Turkey | Short
A dream, a poetry… One man is in a journey, travels alone with his car in a place away from the big cities, but suddenly he stops his car; then starts walking to the fields at the roadside and an inner journey into his mother begins with a poem which recited to us, but this journey will take us to the places that never expected.
Suck’ Story | India | Short
Sometimes Success Stories can be sucking. Its a story of MayaNagri-Mumbai, where a single success story of a Bollywood Celeb attracts youth from all parts of the country.
Billu’s Flight | India | Short
Billu’s Flight is story of a young boy who is trying to supports his family through a unique sport called Kabootarbaazi. Kabootarbaazi is a sport in India where people keep Pigeon and trained them to fly high as well as long duration of period. In India Hardly People knows about these Sports. Whole Film is about a boy who is struggling to win this competition, so that from the prize money he can help his father who is a poor Farmer where he has to return lot of money to government. So that he can save his land for farming. Finally boy loses his pigeon on a competition Day and what happens next we revel in the climax.
Bhopal Diaries |India | Short
Bindu, a naive immigrant woman in Bhopal, India makes mobile videos of herself talking about everyday incidents and sends it to her husband Mohan – a soldier, away on duty protecting the nation’s borders. She’s a survivor of the horrific 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy and as a consequence suffers from chronic chest pains. The after effects of that tragedy are so far reaching that their 4 year old child, Goku, born decades after the accident, has regular health problems due to it. Despite their poverty, physical ailments and daily challenges of life, she maintains a positive outlook and tries to project a happy image. But her joyous facade will collapse soon in the face of a greater tragedy that awaits them.
Awadh Art Society, the organizer of “Shaan-e-awadh International Film Festival (SAIFF), is a Non Government Organization, which is purely dedicated towards the artist, performer, musicians, writers, directors and other known and unknown form of art to promote Indian Art & Culture in India and Abroad.
