India’s National Film Development Corp (NFDC) has announced the projects selected for this year’s Work-In-Progress (WIP) Lab at Film Bazaar, as well as its curated section of upcoming Indian cinema, Film Bazaar Recommends (FBR).
WIP Lab has selected five films, including Varun Grover’s All India Rank, Diwa Shah’s Bahadur, Siddartha Jatla’s In The Belly Of A Tiger, Dibakar Das Roy’s Dilli Dark and Sumanth Bhat’s Mithya (more details below).
FBR is a curated section of 20 films selected from Film Bazaar’s Viewing Room, which this year will screen 247 films, including 170 features. Among these films, 91 are in-progress works looking for gap financing, film festivals, distribution and sales.
The five WIP Lab selections will also screen in FBR, along with Hindi-language films such as Devashish Makhija’s Joram and Kanu Behl’s India-France co-production Agra; Paban Kumar Haobam’s Tangkhul-language Josephki Macha and Tamil-language drama Manal, from Sri Lanka’s Chandrasekaram Visakesa.
WIP Lab selections at Film Bazaar over the past three years include titles that have enjoyed wide festival success, such as Natesh Hegde’s Pedro, Shankar’s Fairies by Irfana Majumdar, Ajitpal Singh’s Fire In The Mountains, Nitin Lukose’s Paka – River Of Blood and Shivamma (pictured above) by Jai Shankar.
Film Bazaar was launched in 2007 to discover, nurture and support South Asian cinema across both production and distribution. The last two editions were held online due to the pandemic, but this year’s event is being held in person at its usual venue, the Goa Marriott Resort in Goa, India from November 20-24.
WORK-IN-PROGRESS LAB:
All India Rank, Varun Grover (Hindi)
Bahadur, Diwa Shah (Nepali, Kumaoni, Hindi)
In The Belly Of A Tiger, Siddartha Jatla [India, China, US, Taiwan, France] (Hindi)
Dilli Dark, Dibakar Das Roy (Hindi)
Mithya, Sumanth Bhat (Kannada)
FILM BAZAAR RECOMMENDS FEATURES:
Aattam, Anand Ekarshi (Malayalam)
Agantuk, Probir Kumar Sarkar [Bangladesh] (Bengali)
Agra, Kanu Behl [India, France] (Hindi)
All India Rank, Varun Grover (Hindi)
Bahadur, Diwa Shah (Nepali, Kumaoni, Hindi)
Be Kucheye Khoshbakht, Sreemoyee Singh (Persian)
Daayam, Prasanth Vijay (Malayalam)
Dear Latika, Kanchan Pant (Hindi)
Dilli Dark, Dibakar Das Roy (Hindi)
Family, Don Palathara (Malayalam)
Guras, Saurav Rai [India & Nepal] (Nepali)
In The Belly Of A Tiger, Siddartha Jatla [India, China, US, Taiwan, France] (Hindi)
Joram, Devashish Makhija (Hindi)
Josephki Macha, Paban Kumar Haobam (Tangkhul)
Manal, Chandrasekaram Visakesa [Sri Lanka] (Tamil)
Mithya, Sumanth Bhat (Kannada)
Pushtaini, Vinod Rawat (Hindi, Kumaoni, English)
Sultana Ka Sapna, Isabel Herguera [India, Spain, Germany] (Hindi, Bengali, English, Spanish, Basque, Italian)
The Scavenger Of Dreams, Suman Ghosh (Hindi)
Whispers Of Fire & Water, Lubdhak Chatterjee (Bengali, Hindi, English)