DHARAMSHALA: Filmmaker Aarti Neharsh’s directorial debut “The Song We Sang” and Nainisha Dedhia-directed Gujarati short film “Dhummas” won the top prizes at the Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF), which concluded its virtual edition over the weekend.
The 9th edition of DIFF was held online from October 29 to to November 8.
Neharsh’s short film, a love story of two women featuring Serena Walia and Ayushi Gupta, won the Audience Award for the best first film to encourage and promote Indian short filmmaking.
A special mention was given to animation “Wade” by Kalp Sanghvi and Upamanyu Bhattachryya.
Dedhia won the Gender Sensitivity Award for her Gujarati short film “Dhummas”, based on KR Meera’s story “Ormayude Njarambu”.
The festival, presented by Dharamshala-based filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam to promote contemporary cinema, art and independent media practices in the Himalayan region, was earlier slated to take place virtually from October 29 to November 4 this year, but was extended till Sunday earlier last week.
With the widest slate of programming yet with over 100 films from 40 countries, the DIFF this year managed to reach audiences across boundaries not only in the South Asian region but also countries as far as Czech Republic, Russia, Netherlands and Australia among others.
The line-up of titles also included documentaries such as “76 Days”, “Pearl of the Desert”, “A Rifle and a Bag”, “The Kingmaker”, “Softie”, “Welcome to Chechnya”, and feature narratives “Corpus Christie”, “Identifying Features”, “Air Conditioner” and “Shell and Joint”. (AGENCIES)
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