Date:07/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/10/07/stories/2007100750770200.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Film festival

Staff Reporter

CHENNAI:

Abilityfest 2007, India International Disability Film Festival, is a film festival focussed on the special needs and abilities of the differently-abled.

On behalf of the organisers of the film festival Ability Foundation, actor and vice chairperson of Abilityfest Revathy said the festival was one that would feature films that spoke about or showed disability in the “right light.”

“All the films either deal with some issue about disability or have actors or filmmakers who are differently-abled,” she added. The films screened would be fully accessible to those with any form of physical disability.

“All the films have captions and subtitles for those who cannot hear. They also have audio descriptions of scenes, so that those who cannot see will be able to follow,” she said.

One of the highlights of the film festival was a component called ‘60 seconds to fame’. “People all over India were invited to make a one-minute film on the theme of ‘celebrating diversity’. We received 208 entries of which 39 were shortlisted and viewed by a jury. The jury then selected three winners.”

Also present at the press meet were the jury members – producer Govind Nihalini, director Dev Benegal, social worker Nafisa Ali, actor Prakash Raj, cinematographer Ravi K. Chandran, activist Neenu Kewlani and writer and filmmaker Salil Chaturvedi.

The film festival will go on for four days from Friday. The venues will be Woodlands Theatre in Royapettah and the South India Film Chamber on Anna Salai.