
IDFFB
After a pandemic induced hiatus, the Film Society of Bhubaneswar announces the 3rd Indian Documentary Film Festival of Bhubaneswar (IDFFB).
The festival runs from 14th to 16th October, at the Odissi Research Centre (ORC) auditorium. The focus of the festival is to showcase the contemporary documentary form. The films at the festival comes from diverse regions of the country - exploring issues of migration, gender, uneven development, issues of geo-politics, environmental degradation, political & ethical questions.
The film society draws its energy from the volunteers who make the festival possible.
Come and Volunteer, we also have internship opportunities with us.
Schedule



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Mizo Soundscapes
Joshy Joseph
English
22
|
2022
Mizo Soundscapes is a visual - visceral -aural journey through a phase in Mizo History.

City Girls
Priya Thuvassery
Hindi
28
|
2021
City Girls' is an intimate portrayal of two young girls from small towns of India now living in Delhi. The film attempts to deconstruct the image of ‘the city’ and what it means for a young woman brought up in an 'elsewhere' she's longed to escape from all her life.

Salt & Sugar
JJ Abraham
English
22
|
2022
Salt and Sugar begins with a memory. A comment from her mother about her dark skin reveals to Hema the impossible gap between who she is and who society demands her to be. This intimate story speaks of the complexities of Indian culture, through classical Indian dance, contemporary movement and spoken word.

Gosain: The Colours of Spring
Bishal Swargiary
Kochari
28
|
2022
The significance and traditions surrounding the Doul Purnima (Holi Festival), as well as the mythology of the discovery Narasimha Gosain by the Banka Kachari while excavating a pond serve as the foundation for this ethnographic film.

Armature
Joshua Quadros
Hindi/Urdu
28
|
2022
Armature is a documentary about a Jiu-Jitsu athlete and his journey to making his amateur MMA debut.

In a Dissent Manner
Ehraz A Zaman
Hindi
62
|
2022
The campus of Aligarh Muslim University became a battleground on 15th December, 2019 when police and RAF forces entered the campus on the pretext of dispersing protestors, and inflicted, what can only be described as one of the worst cases of police brutality on the students. 'In A Dissent Manner' explores the events of that one single night and its horrific after-effects on many students.

Bela
Prantik Basu
Bangla
59
|
2021
In Bela (an indigenous village in eastern India), the men practice a traditional masked folk dance known as the Chhau, while the women frequent the nearby forest to gather dry leaves and firewood. In the local language, Bela means time. Shot over two years and edited as two consecutive days, the film is an intimate observation of the rhythms and rituals of art and labour, the feminine and the masculine, and the ambiguous thresholds between them.

Sindhusthan
Sapna Moti Bhavnani
Sindhi/English
64
|
2019
The documentary includes many stories of the largest migration a culture in history – the Sindhi migration, some from India and some from Sindh (now in Pakistan) along with the director’s, illustrating her journey on her skin.

Bid for Bengal
Kasturi Basu and Dwaipayan Banerjee
Bangla
70
|
2021
Using fresh and archival footage with personal family history, 'A Bid for Bengal' lays bare historical fault lines and visits the workings of frontal organizations in the Hindu-nationalist network responsible for the recent political shift in West Bengal, in between witnessing two consecutive elections trials, from 2019 to 2021.

All that breathes
Shounak Sen
Hindi
91
|
2022
All That Breathes, follows two brothers who run a bird hospital dedicated to rescuing injured black kites, a staple in the skies of New Delhi, India. As environmental toxicity and civil unrest escalate, the relationship between this family and the neglected kites forms a poetic chronicle of the city’s collapsing ecology and deepening social fault lines.

Hatibondhu
Kripal Kalita
Axomiya
53
|
2021
Hati Bondhu (friends of elephants), a voluntary organisation working for elephant welfare in the districts of Nowgaon & Golaghat districts of Assam. Wild elephant habitats are under stress due to developmental pressures. Hati Bondhu's intervention has resulted in reduced human-pachyderm conflicts.

Ghar Ka Pata
Madhulika Jalali
Kashmiri/English
67
|
2020
The film attempts to weave a narrative of the place and of time gone by, juxtaposing a string of short conversations, filmed impromptu through the streets of 'Rainawari', (a quaint suburb of Srinagar where the director's home used to be), with a series of anecdotal experiences with Jalali's family when her father took us back to Kashmir 24 years after they had to leave the valley of mist.

Xenophobia
Monjul Baruah
Axomiya
22
|
2022
The film is based on the much-reported story of 65-year-old Dulal Paul, who was declared a foreigner by a tribunal in 2017 and died while he was lodged in a detention camp.

Buwati Nodir Dore
Neelansh Mittra
Axomiya
29
|
2022
The film shows the rapid cultural transformation in the Sonowal Kachari tribe after the recent exposure to the internet. It captures how The traditional folk songs of the tribe are being remixed in a modern way in recording studios in the city leaving the members of the Kachari tribe in the village, worried about the future of their cultural identity.

Small time Cinema
Priya naresh
Axomiya/Hazaragi
30
|
2022
Small-Time Cinema is a documentary that follows two Youtube filmmaking groups, one living in Balochistan, Pakistan, and one, in Assam, India. The film follows these groups, as they make space for their complex history and cultures, beyond a blanket ‘Indian or Pakistani identity’ only.

Backstage
Lipika Darai
Odia
85
|
2021
The film portrays the lives and times of the puppeteers of Odisha, India. The folk art form, which is as vulnerable as its performers, mostly belonging to the lower strata of society in terms of caste and economy, is experiencing a silent death as only the last generation of practitioners are remaining. The filmmaker builds a personal narrative to trace the time a dying art form is going through.

Gay India Matrimony
Debalina Majumdar
Bangla
67
|
2020
This film revolves around three characters who are out exploring their same-gender marriage prospects with one of them documenting their travails. Shot over five years, this documentary captures the watershed moment of reading down Section 377.

Once Upon a Sky
Barnali Ray Shukla
English/Hindi
72
|
2020
The film follows the story of an Indian paraglider, Gurpreet Dhindsa and gazes upon this man’s total commitment to flying and engages with the idea that adventure sports are closest to being most alive and we know that best when we come to injuries. Injuries are variable here, some are fears, most are obstacles and finally of course the ones which are external, which reveal as the film unfolds.
Colours of Life
Praveen Morchale
Ladakhi/Hindi
61
|
2022
The Director revisits the Himalayan mountain villages after 5 years of shooting a national award-winning feature film "Walking With The Wind" in which local villagers appeared. He meets and observes villagers' life, philosophy, and ideas and invites them for a cinema experience, which some of them had for the first time.

It was in Spring
Dr Kanika Gupta
English
30
|
2021
A devastating change is becoming a trend, that of compromising all trees, plantation and garden spaces in exchange for multi-storey houses, which don't seem to need a garden anymore. This film is the story of one such house, which is destined to lose all its green cover and make way for cement and concrete.

New Classroom
Debankon Singh
Bangla/English
28
|
2022
In the capital city of India, a young boy navigates virtual schooling at home, while the pandemic ravages the country. The imagination of the outside world slowly builds within these four walls; sometimes when a relative calls to inform the death of a loved one, sometimes watching a bird soaring in the sky.

Dukhu Majhi
Somnath Mondal
Bangla
28
|
2022
This documentary is about an old man named 'Dukhu Majhi', who lives with his family in a remote village at the foothill of the Ayodhya , about 350 km from Kolkata (India).

Cham
Abhijit Das
Monpa
40
|
2022
Two parallel narratives are drawn from the lives of Lamas (Monks) of the Tawang Monastery and of the villagers living in the Mon region. This film is a visual installation of images through which it tries to narrate their life, spiritual journey and understanding of life philosophy. The film has plays and dances (pantomime) performed in the Torgya festival transiting through the dance rehearsals and secret and sacred preparations.

Siege in the Air
Muntaha Amin
Kashmiri/English
30
|
2022
This film lays focus on the recent communication blockade of 2019, post the Article 370 abrogation and what its impact was on mental health, mobility, education and desires of young women living there.

Wittgenstein Plays Chess With Duchamp:
Or How Not To Do Philosophy
Amit Dutta
English
17
|
2020
The project attempts to push the boundaries of cinema by juxtaposing it with ideas from philosophy, visual art, chess, mathematics, geometry, linguistics and psychology.

Hridoy Basat
Sankhajit Biswas
Bangla
62
|
2021
An intimate portrayal of Suvana Sudeb, a transgender person, who undergoes Gender Affirmative Surgery in order to negotiate the conflict of body and mind.

Not Just Roads
Nitin Bathla
Hindi
70
|
2021
This film captures the story of a highway outside Delhi, from the perspective of human and non-human actors. It depicts a massive urban transformation underway in India.

Trans Kashmir
Surbhi Dewan and S.A. Hanan
Kashmiri
62
|
2022
TRANS KASHMIR is a film about the extreme hardships, resilience and beauty of Kashmir’s transgender community and their growing movement for basic human rights.

Special Focus
Testimony of Ana
Sachin Dheeraj Munigonda
Dangi
24
|
2021
An Adivasi elder, accused of witchcraft by her neighbours in rural India, uses faith and perseverance to survive several monstrous attacks. Living in an areabeset by widespread logging, her refusal to be driven off the land sets up a conflict deeply rooted in patriarchy and capitalism waged on women’s bodies- the witch hunt.

Karbala Memoirs
Sourav Sarangi
Bangla
40
|
2020
This film looks at Hussain’s martyrdom from the perspective of an Indian who accidentally happens to be in the ancient land that has been ravaged by war, extremism and autocracy. The narrative merges his childhood memories with immensely disturbing contemporary realities. His eyes follow the pilgrims’ progress, listening to their ballads or personal interpretations of history.

Ek Tha Gaon
Shristi Lakhera
Garhwali
61
|
2021
In the Himalayan foothills, an 80 year old woman and a 19 year old girl are two of the seven remaining inhabitants of an abandoned village. The two women struggle with the choice to leave for an alienating city life or continue living in a lonely village.

A Night of Knowing Nothing
Payal Kapadia
English/Hindi
97
|
2021
A university student in India, writes letters to her estranged lover, while he is away. Through these letters, we get a glimpse into the drastic changes taking place around her. Merging reality with fiction, dreams, memories, fantasies and anxieties, an amorphous narrative unfolds.

Meiram - The Fireline
James Khangenbam
Manipuri
33
|
2022
As season change, Langol, once a barren hilltop in the fringe of Imphal city, brings magic of the forest. The dream of Loiya, a young man, to cover the hill with lush green has been taken up mutually by a young group of volunteers. The film gently touches the embracing colours of wild and slices of biodiversity.

