Travelling Film South Asia 2006

Film South Asia ’05
The fifth edition of the festival of South Asian documentaries, Film South Asia ’05, was held in Kathmandu from 29 September to 4 October, 2005. Forty-four films were screened, selected from 190 films submitted. The last two days of the festival had a special section of 15 films with the theme “Barrel of the Gun” to highlight the futility of violence for political ends in the context of the insurgency in Nepal.

In addition to the special section the festival was held at a commercial duplex because of the ever-growing popularity of the festival and the response of the Kathmandu audience met our expectations with most of the screenings running to almost full houses in spite of the bigger venue. The popularity of the South Asian documentary is registering a continuous upward swing.

"Revolution in Digital – Go Documentary” was the slogan of FSA ’05 to highlight the possibilities of the new technology and its democratic potential. In line with this idea a new category of award for Best Debut Film was also instituted at this festival. It is the hope of the organisers that more and more young people take up documentary filmmaking as a medium to highlight the issues that concern South Asia – be it political, economic, cultural, lifestyle or anything under the sun.

Travelling Film South Asia ’06
One reason is the existence of Traveling Film South Asia, which has over the last eight years been showcasing the best of the Subcontinent’s non-fiction output in the region and overseas. Because of the high quality of the entries shown at FSA ’05, we are confident that the current TFSA ’06 will help further consolidate the audience as well as market for the South Asian non-fiction film.

The 15 films that are part of this travelling collection were chosen from those screened at FSA ’05 with the help of the festival’s three-member jury, chaired by the Bangladeshi filmmaker Tareque Masud. They include four of the award winners at FSA ’05. These fifteen outstanding films will be travelling all over South Asia and the world, giving audiences far removed from each other an opportunity to sample an exciting range of topics and themes, presentation styles and techniques.

TFSA is a tradition begun with the first Film South Asia festival, held in September 1997, after which 15 outstanding films travelled to 40 venues. The second TFSA, subsequent to FSA '99, traveled to more than 45 venues. Following on FSA 2001, the third TFSA, went to 48 venues and TFSA ’04 with a selection from the fourth edition of the festival went to 51 venues.

We expect TFSA ’06 to travel to many more cities and venues within the countries of South Asia, helping generate understanding and empathy among ourselves. At the same time, the traveling festival’s excursion overseas will provide the critical context required for others to understand us.

The FSA Secretariat encourages organisers and film enthusiasts in towns and cities large and small – all over – to consider hosting TFSA and bringing a taste of this at-once diverse and unifying package of documentaries to audience in South Asia and in the world.