Award-winning animator Gitanjali Rao has made a film that explores the strength of people with disabilities for the first International Film Festival for the Persons with Disabilities (IFFPD). The three-day film festival will be held at Siri Fort auditorium in New Delhi from Tuesday. Rao’s film will be screened on Monday at a curtain-raiser event at Press Information Bureau, Shastri Bhawan, read a statement.
“Having seen my body of work, National Film Development Corporation proposed to me the idea of making a signature film for the festival. From there, I conceived a couple of ideas wherein the concept/philosophy that we decided to follow was to show what differently-abled people are capable of doing rather than what they are not,” Rao said.
The festival is organised by Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment and National Film Development Corporation.
Rao’s 30-second animated film focuses on swavlamban (empowerment), which is also the motto of the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment.
The film will be played before every film screening at the festival.
Rao said she used shadow puppetry for her movie. “I designed a style using shadow puppets, a lost Indian art form, that enabled me to portray differently-abled people with an aesthetic where they are not controlled by strings, but by their own strength,” she said.
Music is another important aspect of the film.
She said: “The music created by Sagar Desai lends a timeless quality to the film. The fact that it will be screened repeatedly meant the visual and music had to be rich, detailed, with more to hear and see with every viewing.”
Rao’s previous short film, Printed Rainbow, won three awards at Cannes International Film Festival in 2006.
Meanwhile, 40 Indian language and international films will be screened at the festival which comprises of 16 short films, 14 documentaries and 10 features (seven fiction and three documentaries). The Indian National Award-winning Marathi feature Yellow is the festival’s inaugural movie.
