The fifth edition of the Woodpecker International Film Festival (WIFF) here next month will present 76 films questioning social inequalities and norms challenging age-old practices and traditions.
Short films and documentaries from India and 15 other countries will be screened at the four-day festival at Siri Fort Auditorium here from November 9-12.
The fest’s founder-director Rao Narender Yadav said in a statement: “This year, the theme of the festival is ‘Your Stories, Our Stories’, and the festival will be screening films on issues that touch everyone’s life.
“We are constantly experimenting to promote issue-based cinema globally and explore the power of storytelling through films to create a better world.”
National Award-winning filmmaker Akanksha Sood Singh’s “Mrityubhoj” will have its world premiere at WIFF. It highlights the age old Hindu tradition of Mrityubhoj – the feast traditionally organised on the last and 13th day of rituals for the dead.
The India premiere of Adil Hussain-starrer “Feast of Varanasi” by Rajan Kumar Patel, will also be hosted here. It’s a film addressing the subject of Aghoris while underlining the issue of casteism.
Then, National Award winning filmmakers Nandan Saxena and Kavita Behl’s “Krishna’s Waiting Room” — highlighting the reality of Vrindavan’s widows and their limited lives — will also be screened.
From the foreign world, master works such as David Attenborough’s “Light on Earth”, a feature-length documentary exploring the world of bioluminescence – living organisms that produce their own light — will be on offer.
Shaina Allen’s “The Rebound” challenges the notion of disability as it follows wheelchair bound basketball players in Miami. Andrew Franks’s “Cab Elvis” has a cabbie in Seattle dressing up like his idol Elvis Presley and irking the local council for not adhering to the official dress code.
Launched in 2013, WIFF is part of the Cinema for Change initiative launched by CMSR foundation, a capital-based not-for-profit trust.
