A world premiere, red carpet glitter and awards galore for some of its 2022 line-up make up this year’s Blue Orchid Hotels London Indian Film Festival (LIFF).
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The highly anticipated thriller ‘Dobaaraa’ opened this year’s festival at BFI Southbank in London last week, followed by a Q&A by director Anurag Kashyap and Taapsee Pannu. The British Indian glamour was added on with renowned theatre director Pravesh Kumar's feature film debut ‘Little English’, attended by filmmaker Gurinder Chadha among others.
One of the short films in the LIFF roster this year has already garnered massive praise, including the prestigious Silver Cannes Lion at the Cannes Film Festival.
‘Masterji’, a Hindi film with English subtitles, is the story of a biology teacher played by Raghubir Yadav on the verge of retirement has to learn a new style of teaching as India enters lockdown. Will he be able to adapt and continue inspiring his students?
Sameer Sharma, the Director of the short film, said: “I would like to thank LIFF for showcasing our film, I am truly obliged. This is an honest story of a professor struggling with the digital age in a pandemic, we tried to be as honest with the story and film craft.
“Right from winning the Spikes Awards to Cannes Lion, this has been a truly brilliant journey.”
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Producer Akshay Shah added: “We are privileged that our short film directed by Sameer Sharma and written by Vishal Sagar is premiered at such a prestigious film festival, this ideally was a teacher's day ad film, where the client BYJU’S believed in a longer format narrative film, would specially thank Vineet Singh and Divya Gopalan for letting us produce it for them.”
LIFF, which runs until this weekend, has been packed with special screenings and masterclasses across London. The festival will carry on into next week with a selection of films being screened in Manchester and Birmingham, besides select ones available on its online platform LoveLIFFatHome.com and BFI Player.
*Info: London Indian Film Festival