Centre clears 23 of 31 IDSFFK films for screening after Academy moves court
The Union I&B Ministry has permitted screening of 23 of the 31 films at IDSFFK that were earlier denied clearance; eight remain pending.
The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has granted permission for 23 of the 31 films selected for the 18th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Keralam (IDSFFK) that had earlier been denied clearance. The decision came on Saturday, the day the Kerala High Court was scheduled to hear arguments in the matter.
The court had issued a notice to the Ministry after the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, which organises the festival, initiated legal action seeking screening permission for all 31 titles.
According to Academy sources, eight films are still awaiting clearance, five of them in competition sections spanning categories such as long documentary and short fiction.
Among the films cleared are Globe, Bhintila Paath and A Handshake in the Short Film Competition section; Mother Tongue, Unstrung and Chapter Two in the Focus section; Birds of War, Inside, Melatonin, Raha, Memories of a Window, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, My Father and Gaddafi, Silenced, Landmarks, The Match, Cover-up, Fifty-Eighth and Shot Reverse Shot in the International section; and Guided Tour, Rehearsals for a Revolution, One in a Million and the Nepali film Band-Aids in the Festival Winners section.
One of the cleared films had been submitted as part of a waiting list and is not part of the festival's official programme.
Screening of the cleared films will begin on the third day of the festival. A revised schedule will be posted on the IDSFFK website, and delegates will be informed by SMS.
Among the titles still awaiting clearance is Sanitised Republic: Cast(e) and Contracts, which follows sanitation workers at Delhi's Kalawati Saran Children's Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College who worked through the COVID-19 pandemic and lost their jobs in June 2022. The film examines contractual labour and the relationship between caste and sanitation work in contemporary India. Another pending documentary, Parliament Street, deals with public memory, personal memories and history on a street of national importance.