WELCOME TO WIFF-2016

 

Woodpecker International Film Festival (WIFF) is India's premier competitive film festival focusing on issue-based cinema. The first edition of the festival was organised in 2013 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. Launched in the backdrop of the completion of 100 years of Indian Cinema, the festival was a tribute to the Indian cinema for its ability to nurture diverse genres of films and filmmaking traditions in the country. 

 

Today, Cinema is at an important crossroad. While the distinction between mainstream and parallel cinema is almost getting blurred, a new breed of alternative filmmakers, successfully blending entertainment and meaningful cinema, is taking ground. Woodpecker International Film Festival (WIFF) aims to showcase this rich mélange of visual creativity to promote films and filmmakers focusing on socially pertinent themes.

 

WHY THIS FESTIVAL & FORUM?

 

The last one decade in India has seen tremendous changes particularly on communication and technological fronts. With easy accessibility to new technology and availability of new communication channels, reach and impact of visual messages has grown significantly, both in rural and urban areas. Be it short films, documentaries or social advertisements, they have now become an immensely powerful tool of communications aimed towards bringing desired social change. WFF thus would like to comprehensively cover the wide spectrum of issues that have caught the attention of new breed of filmmakers in the recent past, be it gender, public health or environment. A major attraction of the film festival would be forum activities. Seminars, conferences, workshops and master classes to help filmmakers and film enthusiasts explore contemporary issues, network with professional associates, hone their filmmaking skills and share the power of storytelling through cinema.

 

ORGANISER

 

The festival and forum is part of the 'Cinema for Change' initiative of CMSR Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation based in New Delhi. The Foundation, a registered body under the Indian Trust Act, has been established to harness the power of information, education and communications to bring positive social change. To know more about CMSR Foundation log on to www.cmsrfoundation.org