Dharamshala International Film Festival

The Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) is an international film festival showcasing the best of recent Indian and world cinema, including fiction, documentaries and shorts. DIFF debuted on 1 to 4 November 2012 in McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala, India. The second edition was held from the 24th to 27th October, 2013. The third edition took place from the 30th of October to the 2nd of November, 2014. The fourth edition was held from 5th to 8th November, 2015. This year, the festival will take place from the 3rd to 6th of November, 2016.

The festival was conceptualized by filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam of White Crane Films as a means of bringing quality contemporary, independent cinema to the culturally diverse location of Dharamshala. DIFF will be presented through their trust White Crane Arts & Media, which promotes contemporary art, cinema and independent media practices in the Himalayan region.

Background

As long-term residents of Dharamshala, Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam have long believed that the culturally eclectic town would make an ideal location for an international film festival. Nestled in the hills of the Dhauladhar Himalayan mountain range, it is a small but cosmopolitan town populated by local Gaddis, Rajputs, Tibetan refugees and foreign expatriates from around the world. Home to the Dalai Lama and the capital of the Tibetan diaspora, Dhamashala is a unique converging point of various cultures, religions, ethnicities and languages. Sarin and Sonam aspire to establish DIFF “as a world-class film festival where filmmakers and film lovers can interact in an intimate, creative and informal way” and to “promote and encourage local filmmaking talent.”^[1]

Held in a town with no cinema, the festival’s primary audience is the local Indian and Tibetan population. Addressing the lack of access to high-quality, non-commercial cinema, DIFF offers the town’s residents a window into the world of contemporary film, enriching their knowledge and understanding of other places and cultures. Apart from sharing their love for cinema, Ritu and Tenzing aim to fill the cultural gap small towns face in terms of cinema and arts.

DIFF 2012

The first edition of DIFF screened 26 feature films, shorts and documentaries from around the world, drawing over 5000 film-lovers from across India. In addition to the film screenings, the festival included panel discussions and master classes with filmmakers from India and abroad, such as Jennifer Fox, Karim El Hakim, Guy Davidi and Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni.

The 2012 edition was preceded by an international artists’ workshop jointly organized by White Crane Arts & Media and the Delhi-based Khoj International Artists’ Association held in Dharamshala from 20 October to 1 November. It also featured a live music performance by Tibetan traditional folk musicians ^[2]

List of films screened at DIFF 2012
Film	Country	Year	Genre	Director	Duration
Miss Lovely	India	2012	Drama	Ashim Ahluwalia	102 min
5 Broken Cameras	Palestine/Israel	2012	Documentary	Emad Burnat & Guy Davidi	90 min
My Reincarnation	USA	2010	Documentary	Jennifer Fox	82 min
½ Revolution	Denmark/Egypt	2012	Documentary	Karim El Hakim & Omar Shargawi	72 min
Nostalgia for the Light	Chile	2010	Documentary	Patricio Guzman	90 min
Pina	Germany	2011	Documentary	Wim Wenders	106 min
HaHaHa	South Korea	2010	Drama	Hong Sang-soo	116 min
Senna	UK	2010	Documentary	Asif Kapadia	106 min
Oka!	USA	2011	Drama	Lavinia Currier	106 min
Deool	India	2011	Drama	Umesh Kulkarni	135 min
Gattu	India	2012	Documentary	Rajan Khosa	90 min
When Hari Got Married	India	2012	Documentary	Ritu Sarin & Tenzing Sonam	75 min

DIFF 2013

The Second Edition of the festival was held from the 24th to the 27th October 2013. Approximately 30 fiction, documentary, short and experimental films were showcased.^[3]

An unusual and exciting feature of DIFF 2013 was a series of films made by leading contemporary international artists that are rarely seen outside the gallery space, presented by the Vienna-based Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Foundation.

A sidebar showcased the best of recent short films from India, curated by noted Indian filmmaker Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni. A number of acclaimed Indian and international filmmakers and industry professionals invited to attend DIFF interacted with the audience through Q&A sessions, panel discussions and filmmaking masterclasses.^[4]

List of confirmed films screened at DIFF 2013
Film	Country	Year	Genre	Director	Duration
Gulabi Gang	India	2012	Documentary	Nishtha Jain	96 min
Menstrual Man	India	2013	Documentary	Amit Virmani	63 min
To Let The World In	India	2013	Documentary	Avijit Mukul Kishore	93 min
Jai Bhim Comrade	India	2011	Documentary	Anand Patwardhan	199 min
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry	USA/China	2012	Documentary	Alison Klayman	91 min
The Act of Killing	Denmark/Norway/UK	2012	Documentary	Joshua Oppenheimer	59 min
Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer	UK/Russia	2013	Documentary	Mike Lerner, Maxim Pozdorovkin	88 min
The Rocket	Australia	2013	Drama	Kim Mordaunt	96 min
Lasting	Poland	2013	Drama	Jacek Borcuch	95 min
With You Without You	Sri Lanka	2012	Drama	Prasanna Vithanage	90 min
The Strange Little Cat	Germany	2013	Drama	Ramon Zürcher	72 min
Fandry	India	2013	Drama	Nagraj Popatrao Manjule	103 min
Tasher Desh	India	2012	Drama	Q	112 min
Crossing Bridges	India	2013	Drama	Sange Dorjee Thongdok	103 min
Neighbouring Sounds	Brazil	2012	Drama	Kleber Mendonça Filho	131 min
Thursday till Sunday	Chile/Netherlands	2012	Drama	Dominga Sotomayor	96 min

DIFF 2014

The third edition of DIFF showcased 27 full-length feature films and documentaries, and a selection of short animation films, selected from the best of contemporary independent cinema, from the 30th of October to the 2nd of November 2014.

The 2014 edition of the festival counted with 12 filmmakers from India and abroad, film critics, and industry and media personnel, to attend the festival and participate in Q&A sessions. There were also Masterclasses and Workshops, including a Special Animation Workshop conducted by India’s leading animation filmmaker, Gitanjali Rao.

This edition marked the start of the DIFF Film Fellows Programme, in which a selected number of young filmmakers from the Indian Himalayan regions were selected to come to the festival, attend film screenings, masterclasses and workshops, and engage in one-on-one mentoring sessions with established filmmakers. Additionally, there were special Outreach Programmes to ensure participation and involvement of local schools and colleges in the festival, as well as a Food, Arts and Crafts Fair for the duration of the festival at DIFF's main venue, the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA).

List of confirmed feature films to be screened at DIFF 2014
Film	Country	Year	Genre	Director	Duration
Ankhon Dekhi	India	2013	Narrative	Rajat Kapoor	107 min
CityLights	India	2014	Narrative	Hansal Mehta	126 min
Court	India	2014	Narrative	Chaitanya Tamhane	116 min
Eat Sleep Die	Sweden	2012	Narrative	Gabriela Pichler	100 min
Killa	India	2014	Narrative	Avinash Arun	105 min
Liar's Dice	India	2013	Narrative	Geetu Mohandas	103 min
Omar	Palestine	2013	Narrative	Hany Abu-Assad	97 min
Only Lovers Left Alive	UK, Germany, Greece	2013	Narrative	Jim Jarmusch	123 min
Papusza	Poland	2013	Narrative	Joanna Kos-Krauze & Krzysztof Krauze	131 min
Remote Control	Mongolia, Germany, USA	2013	Narrative	Byamba Sakhya	90 min
Sunrise	India, France	2014	Narrative	Partho Sen-Gupta	85 min
Vara: A Blessing	Bhutan, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka	2013	Narrative	Khyentse Norbu	96 min
Zinda Bhaag	Pakistan	2013	Narrative	Meenu Gaur & Farjad Nabi	114 min
A Gesar Bard's Tale	Finland	2013	Documentary	Donagh Coleman & Lharigtso	82 min
A World Not Ours	Palestine, Lebanon, UAE	2012	Documentary	Mandi Fleifel	93 min
Bringing Tibet Home	South Korea, USA	2013	Documentary	Tenzin Tsetan Choklay	82 min
Cambodian Son	Cambodia	2014	Documentary	Masahiro Sugano	90 min
Chimeras	Finland	2013	Documentary	Mika Mattila	87 min
Nabarun	India	2014	Documentary	Q	83 min
Nirnay	India	2012	Documentary	Pushpa Rawat	56 min
Return to Homs	Germany, Syrian Arab Republic	2013	Documentary	Talal Derki	94 min
The Beekeeper	Switzerland	2013	Documentary	Mano Khalil	107 min
The Dossier	China	2014	Documentary	Zhu Rikun	128 min
The Last Adieu	India	2013	Documentary	Shabnam Sukhdev	90 min
The Square	USA	2013	Documentary	Jehane Noujaim	95 min
To Singapore, with Love	Singapore	2013	Documentary	Tan Pin Pin	70 min
Watermarks: Three Letters from China	Switzerland	2013	Documentary	Luc Schaedler	80 min

As with the previous edition of the festival, there will be a sidebar dedicated to the best of new Indian short films curated by filmmaker Umesh Kulkarni, and an additional selection of animation films from around the world curated by animation filmmaker Gitanjali Rao.

Indian short films include:

Border Patrol by Peter Baumann
Call it Slut by Nishtha Jain
Ika by Raam Reddy
Little Hands by Rohin Raveendran Nair
Tamaash by Satyanshu Singh & Devanshu
Three of Us by Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni.

Animation films include:

Dreams and Desires - Family Ties by Joanna Quinn
El Canto by Ines Sedan
L'Homme Qui Dort by Ines Sedan
La Femme Squelette by Sarah Van Den Boom
La Gallina Ciega by Isabel Herguera
Mani's Dying by Shilpa Ranade
Naayo by Saheb Ram Tudu
Naja Goes to School by Shilpa Ranade
Printed Rainbow by Gitanjali Rao
Tanko Bole Chhe by Nina Sabnani
TrueLoveStory by Gitanjali Rao
Goopi Gawaiya, Bagha Bajaiya by Shilpa Ranade (an excerpt of this feature animation film)

References

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