Celebrating India’s Heritage through Films

In order to preserve India’s finest cultural legacies, aadhar initiated The Heritage Film Festival to explore India’s glorious heritage through audio-visual media. The Heritage Film Festival is the initiative to spread awareness and educate public about India’s heritage through films.

Overall aim of the Heritage Film Festival (HFF) is to encourage film submissions, encourage documentary creation, organise film making projects, review film competitions, and screen films to different audiences. Our primary audience is children and youth. We also incorporate individuals and organisations related to film, art, design and heritage. Tourists and international communities are also one of our target audiences to promote Indian heritage worldwide. This unique endeavor is towards creating excitement for India’s glorious Heritage as part of our awareness objective.

The FIRST Heritage Film Festival happened during the UNESCO World Heritage Week celebration in Ahmedabad in November 2012, where the juried films were screened at various venues in and around the city. Festival has started traveling at national level, check HERITAGE FILM TRAVEL. The Festival aims to travel across the globe to reach different audiences to promote Indian Heritage. We welcome individuals and organisations to collaborate to host the festival.

A panel of experts views the entries and compiles a selection of films for public viewing as well as awards every year. All the films received for the Heritage Film Festival will be added to Heritage Archive. Our eminent jury experts in respective area of their professions are Aditi Desai, Aditi Ranjan, Ashoke Chaterjee, Esther David, Gurpreet Singh, Hridaynath Gharekhan, Margie Sastry, Ravji Sondarva, Nirav Barot, Sangeeta Shroff and Villoo Mirza on the jury panel for the festival up till now.

In 5 years (since 2012) the festival has received 450+ short-film / documentary / animation films. The Heritage Film Festival and Heritage Archive (HA) are two complementary initiatives that are part of the archival and promotional objectives of aadhar. 87+ films are selected by our eminent jury for public viewing from the entries up till December 2016. By now we have well researched audio-visual documentation on a number of arts and crafts of India that have been covered in HA documentary collection. Few to name are Gond painting, Storytelling traditions of India, Hand-woven textiles, Traditional pottery and Terracotta art, Phad painting, Bagru hand-block printing, Kutchhi appliqué & hand embroidery, Bhopa – the phad performer, Batik, Ajrakh textile, Turn wood lacquer, Metal bellmaking, Sanjhi traditional paper art, Miniature painting, Handmade tile-making, Leather juti-making, Mata-no-Chandarvo , a religious textile art India, Aari & Zardozi, Bidri craft, Hand-embroideries, Crochet, Wooden Block-making, Dancing dolls, Thanjavur painting, Art platemaking (silver, brass, copper), Handmade metal utensil-making, Machlipatam chintz textile, Wood carving, Bamboo craft, Cane craft, Paper craft, Palm leaf craft, Banana fiber craft, Sanganeri Dhabu printing, Candle making, Elephant decoration, Leather puppets, Wooden toy making, Filigree art, Bandhani (tie-dye), Ritual for Lord Shiva, Theatre art for charity, Puppets – wooden, leather, fabrics, Contemporary Indian painters, Bhil Art, Master craftsmen from India, Playing card making, Bengali painters Bengali wedding ceremony, Sword making, Enameling.

More than 150 individuals and organisations have collaborated for this initiative from 2012 till 2015. One of a Special Collaboration of the project is the Award Sponsors who are none other than the traditional artisans of India. The awards for winning entries are traditional art pieces / exclusive collector artifact that are sponsored by traditional artisans from Gujarat and Rajasthan till now.

We are happy to share that the festival is well received and supported by many enthusiastic and passionate individuals / organisations; as it is not just promoting heritage arts but also encouraging ‘Make in India’ and ‘Made in India’ thus facilitated towards a sustainable employment generations of various art and craft communities. The program has a noticeable impact on locals to endorse products that are made in India and appreciate craftsmanship when they learn about the process of the art / craft from the festival films. Children and youth have shown a keen interest to meet the artisan, craftspeople and support them.

To date our films have been showcased at 28 venues in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and other places in India; more than 39000 viewers of all age groups and all walks of life have seen the films (until November 2016).

We are working towards partnerships from different parts of India as well as the UK, USA, Australia, Africa and other parts of the globe to bring the Film Screening along with art and craft demonstrations, artist & film maker’s talks, workshops. Our team is enthusiastically working to strategic collaborations for the festival to travel. Reach our team at email: film.aadhar@gmail.com In our mission to reach to possibly more audiences we welcome hosts (individuals and organisations) from across the globe for collaborations, sponsorship and donations.