London Indian Film Festival goes digital with Satyajit Ray Short Film winners

The London Indian Film Festival (LIFF) is set to follow the lines of the SXSW International Film Festival and the Dharamshala International Film Festival by taking its 10th edition online. The festival will launch its own streaming platform with a selection of winners from the Satyajit Ray Short Film Competition.  

Scheduled to be held in June, the decision seems to have been forced by the growing spread of the coronavirus pandemic across the world. The decision follows similar moves by the We Are One Film Festival, SXSW Film Festival, and the Dharamshala International Film Festival to move their celebrations to the virtual reality. 

The platform will be available for users at loveliffathome.com. The short films screened at the festival will include director Neeraj Ghaywan's early work, and Shubhashish Bhutiani's Kush, which won the award in 2014. 

Variety.com reported that the festival will follow up the short film screenings with a host of feature films later in the month. 

The report quoted Cary Rajinder Sawhney, executive and programming director of the festival, as saying: “On the 99th birth anniversary month of the world’s most loved Indian director Satyajit Ray, it seems almost a tryst with destiny to be able to show, for the first time, all the winners together of the renowned Satyajit Ray Short Film Competition, that the Ray family kindly supported because the films must enshrine Ray’s empathetic vision of humanity.”

Ben Luxford, head of BFI Audiences, added: “We are delighted to support LIFF’s ambitious plans to present the festival online and, by doing so, ensure that this year’s programme of South Asian cinema reaches an even wider audience, starting with a unique opportunity to see the winners of the Satyajit Ray Short Film Competition over the last nine years. We look forward to seeing the full programme as it is developed.”