International short film festival begins with 2 new categories

Bengaluru: The 11th edition of the Oscar accredited Bengaluru International Short Film Festival (BISFF) started here on Saturday. The festival will conclude on September 5.

This year's edition includes nine different categories, namely International Competition, Indian Competition, Karnataka Competition, Let's Include, Animation, Kindness Matters and Women in Cinema Collective.

This year there are two new categories in the festival - BISFF partnered with UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education (MGIEP) to bring out the selected films collected under the Sustainable Development Goal 2030 through the Kindness Matters category. The 'Women in Cinema Collective' category in collaboration with Kshamata will include cinema made by women and will focus on female-centric issues.

The festival will also feature a compilation of short films from 'Short Export - made in Germany 2021' in collaboration with Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore.

This year, BISFF received 3000 plus submissions from across 87 countries, out of which 32% are first time filmmakers and 30% are Women filmmakers. Around 300 films have been shortlisted for the festival screening this year.

Owing to the pandemic, the festival will screen online for free of cost like last year. BISFF has partnered with Movi Garage to screen all the movies for the festival.

The winning short films in the International and Indian Competition sections of BISFF 2020 are automatically eligible to be screened in the Live Action Short Film Category of the Academy Awards®. The festival has been running for 11 years since 2010, and they received the acclaimed Oscar accreditation just last year.