Why question mark hangs over screenings as curtains rise on Keralam's docu and short film festival
The 18th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Keralam (IDSFFK) is being held in Thiruvananthapuram between September 25 and 30. However, a number of films listed for the event are still awaiting the required Union I&B ministry’s exemption from CBFC clearance. The exemption is mandatory to screen films that do not have the certification.
For now the IDSFFK will open with most of its programme intact, but with a part of its schedule still unresolved.
The 18th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Keralam (IDSFFK) opens in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday (September 25) with a question still hanging over a section of its programme. A number of films listed for the event are still awaiting the required Union Information and Broadcasting (I&B) ministry’s exemption from Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) clearance. The exemption is mandatory to screen films that do not have the certification.
The festival, organised by the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, is scheduled to be held from September 25 to 30. But even as the Academy prepares to welcome filmmakers and audiences, the fate of a number of films remains undecided, including 31 for which the I&B Ministry has sought additional details. The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is yet to issue the required exemption orders for these films.
‘No film denied permission’
The Academy had submitted 347 films to the I&B Ministry seeking exemption from certification. According to senior Academy officials, orders have so far been received for 291 films, leaving a number of films in limbo. The officials say the ministry has indicated that some films require clearance from other Union ministries and sectoral authorities.
The I&B Ministry, however, maintains that no film has been denied permission. It has said some films have been sent to relevant authorities for review depending on their subject matter, while detailed synopses were sought for six films. The ministry has also pointed to the need for additional information in some cases.
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That difference in description has become the immediate flashpoint ahead of the festival. While the Academy views the absence of exemption orders as preventing the affected films from being screened, the Union government describes the process as one of further verification rather than denial.
Senior Academy officials The Federal spoke to say they have been receiving information about the processing of the films largely through unofficial communications and have not received a clear explanation for the delay in every case. The ministry has indicated that different ministries have to give their clearance for films dealing with sensitive subjects, they add.
A Fox Under a Pink Moon, the 18th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Keralam's imaugural film.
The Academy's position is that the films awaiting exemption will be screened once the necessary clearance is received. The uncertainty, however, has already cast a shadow over a festival whose central space is documentary cinema, a form that often deals directly with politics, conflict, displacement, rights and social change.
According to Academy officials, several of the films awaiting clearance deal with politically or socially sensitive subjects. The Union ministry has rejected the suggestion that there has been political intervention, saying the films are being examined because of their subject matter and that relevant ministries may be consulted where necessary.
Not a first
The dispute over exemption is not entirely new. Last year, the International Film Festival of Kerala also faced a similar controversy when a number of films initially did not receive exemption from certification, before clearances were subsequently issued in stages. The current uncertainty at IDSFFK has therefore brought renewed attention to the system under which films without CBFC certification can be screened at festivals.
Against this backdrop, IDSFFK begins with a programme that once again puts documentary cinema at the centre of public debate.
The festival will open with A Fox Under a Pink Moon, directed and produced by Iranian filmmaker Mehrdad Oskouei. The film follows Soraya, a 16-year-old Afghan artist who has spent five years attempting to escape Iran for Austria.
Soraya has documented her own journey, filming dangerous escape attempts, an abusive marriage and the uncertain existence of an undocumented refugee. Alongside the footage, she creates drawings and sculptures from whatever material she can find, including soaked egg cartons and clay encountered along her escape routes.
Her drawings repeatedly return to three figures: a fox, a pink moon and a laughing clown. The fox becomes her travelling companion, the moon a silent witness and the clown a figure with whom she identifies.
The film's intimate, self-shot footage offers a first-person account of displacement and survival while also exploring the role of art in dealing with trauma and uncertainty. It brings together questions of migration, gender-based violence, undocumented life and artistic expression without separating them from the personal story of a young girl.
A Fox Under a Pink Moon has already travelled through the international festival circuit and has won 20 accolades, including the IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) Award for Best Film in the International Competition.
The film's opening at IDSFFK is significant in another way. It sets the tone for a festival where the boundaries between cinema, politics and lived experience are often deliberately blurred. Documentary filmmakers routinely work in spaces where questions of state power, conflict, identity and rights are unavoidable.
That is also what makes the controversy over the 31 films particularly significant for this edition of IDSFFK.
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For the Academy, the immediate issue is practical: a film cannot simply be put on screen without the required exemption. For the filmmakers and festival audience, however, the uncertainty raises a broader question about how documentary films are evaluated when they are submitted for screening at a non-commercial international festival.
For now, therefore, IDSFFK will open with most of its programme intact, but with a part of its schedule still unresolved.
