Jagran Film Festival in Mumbai

This year's Jagran Film Festival (JFF) is on a merry-go-round trip. Flagged off in Delhi on July 5, the fest travelled to Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Agra, Meerut, Dehradun, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Indore and Bhopal before bringing the curtains down on this year's edition in Mumbai.u00a0

Water, an Israeli-Palestinian film, opens at the festival. It's directed by nine filmmakers

The finale of the fourth edition of the JFF opens today with the screening of the Israeli-Palestinian film Water in the evening at Fun Republic Cinema in Andheri. The movie has nine directors. The overall event intends to showcase a mix of feature films, shorties as well as documentaries. It will also exhibit international projects, which will be seen in Asia for the first time. However, the country in focus is South Korea.

Categorised into segments like World Panorama, Indian showcase (in competition), Jagran Shorts (international and national in competition), Jagran Classics Top 20 films of Indian Cinema, homage to late filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh and Berlinale Shorts.

A still from A Night too Young

On the national level, the fest has a separate section for regional films under the Indian Showcase segment. Films made in various Indian regional languages such as Punjabi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi, Bengali and others, will be screened as well.

About 20 Indian feature films, including Bollywood blockbusters, are going to compete in this category. The section also encourages debut directors to showcase their work in front of a global audience and compete with some of the bests at both the national and international level.

A still from Filmistan

More than 35 short films will be judged by a panel of eminent jury comprising French actress Dorothy Briere, filmmaker N Chandra and CEO of Rajshri Media, Rajjat A Barjatya. The competition aims to highlight and encourage the work of some of the bests in this field, through its awards.

The jury for the festival includes filmmaker Basu Chatterjee, actress-director Aditi Ninad Deshpande, ace cinematographer India Raamachandraah, film editor Suresh Pai and theatre doyen Feroz Abbas Khan. The awards will be announced on the final day of the event: September 29. Entry to the festival is free and will be on a first-come-first-serve basis.

Spoilt for choice
Meine Schwestern (Germany)
Chapman (USA)
Ship of Theseus (India)
The Daughter (Greece)
Desperate Endeavours (USA)
Strangers in the House (Turkey)
Keep Smiling (Georgia)
Habi, The Foreigner (Argentina)
The Red Moon (Morocco)
Filmistan (India)
Morning Star (French)
A Night too Young (Czech)
Naked Harbour (Finland)
Rock the Casbah (France)
The Children's Republic (Portugal)
Ko:Yad (India)
The Passion of Michelangelo (Chile)
Beneath the Surface (Hong Kong)u00a0