announcement in Auroville’s News & Notes
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! and welcome to the Auroville Film Festival ‘15! The aim of this festival is to connect with people and cultures within and beyond Auroville and to further the aspiration of Human Unity by showcasing films that develop this theme. We feature films that are created in and around Auroville, as well as international films. This is our fourth biennial Auroville Film Festival and we are going to showcase 150 movies, made by students, Aurovilians and others.
The festival runs from October 2-7 at three venues: Cinema Paradiso, SAIIER Conference Room, and Outside the Town Hall. This year, as before, we will have films in the following categories:
1. films made by residents of Auroville and the bio-region;
2. films made about Auroville and the bio-region;
3. films made by school students residing in Auroville and its bio-region;
4. films that develop the theme of Human Unity.
Some interesting FACTS about AVFF ‘15:
category by Aurovilians: 47 films (10h 33m)
category about Auroville: 31 films (11h 45m)
category by students: 17 films (1h 48m)
category Human Unity: 55 films (43h 34m)
Our selection panel (Alain, Doris, Raman) for the international category of films that develop the theme of Human Unity watched more than 216 submitted films over the past one and a half years. A super big THANK YOU to them.
This year, for the first time, we partnered with the online platform Click for Festival and received 117 submissions out of which 15 were selected from them.
We received 250 submissions directly from people visiting our website.
Great Food, Music & Conversation:
The festival will open at 5pm on the 2nd with performances by Yatra Theatre Group, African Drum & Dance, and the Phoenix Percussion Ensemble. The opening film has been selected in collaboration with the Eco-Film Club of Sadhana Forest.
Moms, Dads, etc, you don’t have to cook for the next 5 days, the menus are set, come and enjoy great inexpensive food, great company and stimulating conversations while being entertained by our talented performers from around the bio-region. After you have had your fill of great tunes and conversation you can catch a movie or two.
GR8 Food: Between 5pm and 7pm, Sadhana Forest, Pour Tous Distribution Centre, Antonio’s Portable Pizza oven with Neo &Youth Centre, Fabienne, Jolly Kimbap, Laxmanan, Dreamers Cafe, Tamarind Bakery, Gaurav, and others at the shamiana.
Musical Performances: between 5pm & 7pm. Come and hear: Krishna & Mishko, Change theWorld Music, Sisters of Auroville, and others. There will be an Open Mike night so contact Kaeridwyn dwyndle@gmail.com if you want to perform.
Art Installations and Exhibitions: There will be exhibitions of photos by students of the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts & Communication, film posters designed by local filmmakers, posters of student films designed by Koteshwar, collages by Soham, and art installations by Ok, Marco, Marc, Orly and Osheen Siva made especially for this festival.
There are so many people to thank so we’ll scratch the surface here!
Collaborators: We thank our collaborators who helped us to get some of the films being screened: Click for Festivals, Culture Unplugged, Festival Cinemas d’Afrique, D’Angers (France), Festival Premiers Plans Angers, Festival Tous Courts, Global Oneness Project, Imcine Mexican Film Institute, Other Israel Film Festival, RIFF Rome Independent Film Festival, WIDE HOUSE (France),
Sponsors: We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions that made this festival possible: Tlaloc, Mr. & Mrs. Pohl, Babu & Antique Jewels Art Pvt Ltd, SAIIER, Miniature, brainfever media productions, The Right Path Cafe, Well Cafe, Solitude Farm & Organic Kitchen, Roma’s Kitchen, Naturellement Garden Cafe, Tanto Pizzeria Trattoria, AVI Germany, Shekhar, Maroma, Samata Archana, Santosh, Stefania, Methout, Ambra, Aurosylle, Tom M, Ingrid, Julliete, Lalit, Elvira, Nico, Prasad, Mona, Shama, Srini, SAVI, Krishna, La Ferme Cheese, Auroville Botanical Gardens, Auroville Radio, Outreach Media, Village Action, Ruben, Sankalpa & the Art Cart, Green Moves, Claude J, Upasana, Samasti Guest House, Manohar, ACUR, Michael G., Foodlink and farms, AV Bakery and the many others who donated towards the success of the film festival.
Volunteers: A big thanks to the volunteers who have helped prior to the festival, who helped during & after the festival: including our selection panel: Doris, Raman and Alain. Kaveri, Ishan, Shradha, Sanjay, Koteshwar, Michael, Vanya, Gandha, Prasanna and others. Manish, Maria, Kumaran, Danielle, Josephine, Tara, Aloe, Rishi, Londen, Rajeev, Ivan, Doris, Nele, Usha, Gildo, Sanjay (for lots of things), Sophie, Sandrine, Kati, Juan, Matilde, & last but not least Shekhar who often went beyond the call of duty.
Judges: Mala Kapadia, Shanky Mahendra, Philippe Borrel are the judges for the three Aurovilian categories. Thank you so much for coming all this way to be with us! Kavitha, Jill and Lella are the judges for the human unity category. They have a big job ahead of them to watch and judge 55 films. Thank you!
AVFF-Educational Outreach Program:
The children’s films have been made possible by grants from Foundation for World Education and SAIIER. Thank you!
AVFF’15 Team:
Tom, Sasikant, Tlaloc, Marco, Christine, Christoph, Claire, Krishna, Laxmanan, Ivana, Kaeridwyn, Mariana, Shekhar, Koteshwar
