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Chaitanya Tamhane with the cast of “Court” in Venice. Image Courtesy: Getty Images

Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut film “Court” has won two prestigious awards at 71st Venice Film Festival that concluded on Saturday.

Chaitanya got the “Lion of the future” award for the best debut film of the festival. The award consists of 100,000 Usd cash divided equally between director and producer.

The film was screened on September 4 in the Orizzonti section of the festival where it won the award for the best film of the section.

The film, that is an exploration of the Indian judiciary, had received the Hubert Bals fund for script and project development in fall 2012 and was part of Nfdc Film Bazaar co-production market in 2012.

Tamhane had earlier made short film, Six Strands, that screened at several film festivals including Clermont-Ferrand, Slamdance, Edinburgh and Rotterdam.

Read Chaitanya Tamhane’s interview here:...

Mumbai-based filmmaker Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut feature film Court recently had a world premiere at the coveted Venice Film Festival. The film, that follows a court case in which a folk singer is tried for abetting the suicide of a manhole worker with his inflammatory song, has been acquired by Artscope, the art film label of Paris-based Memento Films.

Tamhane earlier made a short film Six Strands which screened at several film festivals including Clermont-Ferrand, Slamdance, Edinburgh and Rotterdam.

Bikas Mishra talks to Chaitanya Tamhane about the journey of Court.

How did the journey of Court begin?

I had just finished my short film Six Strands and it was doing the festival rounds. That’s when the idea of Court came to me, in 2011. I’m not a big fan of genre films. But it struck me that I have seen these courtroom dramas which are so articulate and smooth.

Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court has been selected to screen at the 71st Venice Film Festival in Horizons section.

The film, that is an exploration of the Indian judiciary, had received the Hubert Bals fund for script and project development in fall 2012 and was part of Nfdc Film Bazaar co-production market in 2012.

Tamhane had earlier made short film, Six Strands, that screened at several film festivals including Clermont-Ferrand, Slamdance, Edinburgh and Rotterdam.

The 71st Venice Film Festival will be held from August 27-September 6, 2014. Renowned writer of Indian origin, Jhumpa Lahiri, is on the competition jury of the festival.

Bengali film Labour of Love will be screened in Venice Days, a sidebar of the Venice Film Festival.

Court by Chaitanya Tamhane and The Room on a Tree by Amit Dutta have been selected for Script and Project Development of Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf) Fall 2012.

Post completion, the films will be made a part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam under the competition section or the main sections Bright Future, Spectrum or Signals.

Both these projects have also been selected for the National Film Development Corporation’s annual co-production market at Film Bazaar 2012.

Tamhane’s first short Six Strands was screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2011. It has toured many festivals including Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival 2011, Slamdance 2011and Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011.

Amit Dutta’s The Room on a Tree too has also been selected for New Cinema Network, the co-production market at Rome Film Festival.

Hubert Bal Fund was founded in 1988 to help independent film makers from developing countries complete their projects. So far the fund...

DearCinema profiles the Indian participants at Berlinale Talent Campus 2012

Chaitanya Tamhane’s first short film Six Strands is the story of a mysterious woman in the hills of Darjeeling. It got screened at various prestigious film festivals like Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival 2011, Slamdance 2011, Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011, International Film Festival Rotterdam 2011, Gulf International Film Festival 2011 and Short Film Center 2010, Iffi, Goa.

At the 4th Gulf International Film Festival, Tamhane was selected to attend a 10 day film-making master class with renowned Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. His short film Six Strands featured in the inaugural International Competition for Short Films at the same festival.

He was an additional programmer for short films for the International Competition section at Slamdance Film Festival 2012.

Chaitanya Tamhane is currently working on a feature film that explores the Indian judiciary system.

‘I am expecting to meet a lot of like-minded people to share ideas and experiences with.

The 4th Gulf Film Festival that begins on Thursday in Dubai will screen two Indian short films in its inaugural International Competition for Short Films. The films are: Abhay Kumar’s Just that sort of a Day and Chaitanya Tamhane’s Six Strands.

As stated on the official website of the festival, “Abhay Kumar’s experimental film Just that sort of a Day follows people randomly, only to find a common thread among them. Chaitanya Tamhane’s Six Strands, partially based on true stories, is a character study inspired by the world famous Darjeeling tea industry and its undisclosed secrets.”

Fourteen films from Germany, Turkey, Greece, France, Spain, Brazil, Iran and India have been shortlisted for the competition that has been introduced in the 2011 edition of the festival. The prize money for first, second and third positions in this section will be Aed 25,000, Aed 20,000, and Aed 15,000 respectively.

The festival will screen over 150 features,...

The 17th annual Slamdance Film Festival is all set to run for eight days and nights Jan. 21-27. The festival is featuring a bold theme this year of “All Is Not Lost” where — due to the current devastating economic climate — Slamdance will donate 10% of ticket proceeds back to the filmmakers.

The fest is screening 14 feature films — 10 of which are in competition — and 8 feature documentaries, all of which are in competition. In addition, there will be 56 short films screening.

Plus, there are a couple of special screenings, including the Straight 8 event where anybody can register to receive a single roll of Super-8 film that they can use to direct their own in-camera edited mini-masterpiece. Also, on the 26th, there will be a special retrospective of the works of renegade ’60s filmmaker J.X. Williams.

The full film lineup is below, but for more information on the site please visit the official Slamdance website.