IKSFF – International Kolkata Short Film Festival presented by Eventizer an online platform for cine lovers, critics, actor-actress, and others is a hybrid film festival showing respect and awarding Short films, Short Documentaries, Music Videos, and PSA makers since 2020. This is our fourth year and we have come a long way to form our association with the Global film submission portal Filmfreeway (https://filmfreeway.com/InternationalKolkataShortFilmFestival) and many conglomerate firms. We also received immense support and love from many filmmakers, eminent personalities, and cinephiles. This year, we are also a non-academic partner on the Connecting Creative Industries and Cultural Heritage: India-UK Film Festival Federation, Youth Curation, and Community Co-Creation project. In 2020, the year when the human race was scratched and tormented by the sharp claws of the Covid-19 pandemic, human lives were devastated and creative industries were destroyed as an effect of the lockdown.
In this context, the International Kolkata Short Film Festival, IKSFF, a hybrid festival, was at the forefront of supporting talented and creative independent filmmakers showcasing their splendid work on short films, documentaries, music videos, and PSAs. Our First Film festival event was held in 2021. We received a huge number of film submissions. More than 3500 short films, documentaries, and PSAs from over 110 countries got submitted. It also received the support and association of many eminent personalities and popular brands. After the grand success of 1st year the 2nd year Festival of 2022 also saw a huge response. Many celebrities and eminent personalities from India and abroad got associated with us. A total of 15 awards were awarded to the winning participants. In the year 2023, the 3rd edition of the festival was flagged off with an online screening on Kolkata’s First Short Film Platform eFilmzone from 10th January 2023 to 14th January 2023. The week-long online festival screened 80+ short films from India and abroad. The Physical festival and Award ceremony were held at Rotary Sadan Kolkata. A total of 25 awards were awarded to the winning participants. Mr Barun Chanda received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Just within three years, IKSFF got a huge response and success under its belt. The Fourth-year festival is just at the corner and the submission process is underway. This year there will be 6 festival days from 23rd January 2024 to 28th January 2024. The first 3 days will be Seminar/Masterclasses along with Online Screening and the other three days will be the Physical Festival and Award Ceremony.
Presented by Eventizer, IKSFF (https://iksff.co.in/) is a film festival that not only promotes short films but also responsibly takes part in spreading and flagging the cultural heritage of India, highlighting other cultures, and communities through films. We screened environment awareness films during world environment Day at Calcutta University.
IKSFF is also involved in relief programs following the cyclone “Yaash” and actively participated in care and assistance work during the Covid pandemic. This helped many people with the assistance they desperately needed at that moment. Apart from competitive programming, we aim to raise dialogues around films that explore the experiences of people living with disabilities, gender violence, and diminished human rights, and bring attention to their stories, challenges, and triumphs. We plan to host film pitching & funding masterclasses and a session on short film distribution in India where many films are made but struggle to gain financial viability and reach bigger audiences. In this context, dialogue initiation and knowledge sharing around film curation is very much needed, particularly workshop-based skills provision for Young people aspiring to understand film curation, and creative economies and focusing on including marginalized communities from Kolkata and West Bengal. The festival also showcases films and filmmakers from marginalized communities, languages, cultures, gender, and religion. This year we aim to achieve greater success and hope you will help to take us to the greater masses.
