Ai Weiwei’s film on refugee crisis to open IDSFFK today

Thiruvananthapuram: Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the 11th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK) at 6 pm on Friday at Kairali-Nila-Sree theatre complex here. The event, which will have renowned documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma as the chief guest, will be presided over by the minister for cultural affairs, A K Balan.
The first Lifetime Achievement Award, instituted by IDSFFK, will be conferred on acclaimed filmmaker Anand Patwardhan by the chief minister at the opening ceremony.The festival book will be released by V S Sivakumar, MLA, by handing over the first copy to Sharma. The daily bulletin will be released by Balan, by presenting it to Raed Andoni, jury chairman (non-fiction category).
Kavitha Lankesh, member of the jury, office-bearers of Kerala State Chalachithra Academy – Kamal (chairperson) Bina Paul (vice-chairperson), Mahesh Panju (secretary) and Rani George, secretary of department of culture, will attend the ceremony. ‘Human Flow’ directed by Ai Weiwei, which deals with global refugee crisis and shot across 23 countries, is the opening film of the festival.
IDSFFK will screen as many as 206 films from 36 countries under various categories. A total of 64 films are in for the competition under the categories of long documentary, short documentary, short fiction and campus films. As many as 13 music videos and nine animated films have also been included in the festival.
The festival will conclude on Wednesday.