Open Frame Film Festival 2018: Mini-Input section to highlight best of public television from around the world

This Monday (10 September), the 18th edition of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) 8th Open Frame Film Festival begins. The festival is held in partnership with India International Centre, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan and INPUT, the consortium of International Public Service Broadcasters.

Over nine days from 10 to 18 September, the festival aims to show 27 Indian documentaries. The Mini-Input, led by Canadian executive producer Iris Yudai and German film critic Deniz Sertkol, falls in between the festival on 13 to 15 September.

The section emphasises "the role of documentaries in public service broadcasting and the ways in which the agendas of broadcasting need to and can be expanded in keeping with the digital revolution" according to the festival’s official description. It will be inaugurated by Abhijit Dasgupta, the national co-ordinator of INPUT and 13 shorts and documentaries from around the globe will be screened.

It begins on 13 September with the screening of two films, the Canadian short film, Three Thousand, by Inuk artist Asinnajaq (Isabella-Rose Weetaluktuk) which showcases the past, present and the future of the Inuit in a new way and ends with the Danish hour-long documentary, Human Smugglers, which unmasks European traffickers who smuggle migrants to the continent.   

The agenda for 14 September opens with a talk on how documentaries can be enchanced by fictional storytelling. It will be followed by the American documentary Denial: The Dad That Wanted To Save The World told by the son of Dave Hallquist, a CEO with a dark secret. The Israeli-British production, Megiddo, is filmed at the high security prison in Israel of the same name that houses 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

In contrast, the Finnish documentary, Breaking The Cycle, by Tomas Lindh, features a warden from Norway's Halden Prison, the world's most human maximum security prison, who heads to New York's Attica Correctional Facility, the most notorious prison in the world, to change their ways.

The Canadian documentary short, Sickboy, tells the story of 29-year-old Jeremie Saunders a yoga instructor who lives with Cystic Fibrosis, while the Danish documentary The Truth About Our Au Pair, follows three Western mothers who travel to rural Philippines to see how the women who raise their children live.

The day ends with a look at influencers on social media and the content they create.

The last day screenings include the American documentary National Bird by Sonia Kennebeck focuses on the whistleblowers detailing the secrets behind the controversial drone war connected with America.

Two Japansese documentary aim to open up misconceptions commonly associated with disabilities. With Ayumi, a personal film by Yuya Sakagawa which details his personal relationship with his sister Ayumi who has cerebral palsy. Yuya becomes her carer for a month and films the experience.

In Shinji Suzuki's Give Us A Break!: 100 People With Disabilities Speak Out, entertainers and a hundred people with disabilities have a free-wheeling discussion.

The German documentary puts together an unusual experiment wherein the filmmaker Thorsten Klauschke places voters with a politician whose views they don't agree with for one day before the general election.

The Iranian animated short One Thousand Myths borrows fables from history while in the Tajikistani short by Orzumurod Sharipov, The Shell, as a donkey takes an artillery shell through an island, the stories of people fleeing the war are told. The German documentary puts together an unusual experiment wherein the filmmaker Thorsten Klauschke places voters with an politician whose views they don't agree with for one day before the general election.

The Iranian animated short One Thousand Myths borrows fables from history while in the Tajikistani short by Orzumurod Sharipov, The Shell, as a donkey takes an artillery shell through an island, the stories of people fleeing the war are told.