Habitat International Film Festival

The Habitat International Film Festival, launched by India Habitat Centre’s Film Club in 2017, brings critically acclaimed world cinema to film lovers in the capital.

Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman and Mohammad Rasoulof’s A Man of Integrity from Iran, Mustafa Kara’s Cold of Kalandar from Turkey, and Ruben Östlund’s The Square from Sweden are among the award-winning titles shown at the event.

The ten-day festival, which was on hiatus from 2019 to 2021, staged its third edition in May 2022. It opened with Lee Joon-ik’s The Book of Fish, as part of a package of Korean films presented by the Korean Cultural Centre in Delhi. Other highlights were Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero, Filippo Meneghetti’s Two of Us from France, Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s Clara Sola from Costa Rica, Roy Andersson’s About Endlessness from Sweden, a student film package from Poland, and Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers from Spain, which closed the proceedings.

The line-up of documentaries and shorts, meanwhile, spanned a gamut of subjects, from the impact of environmental disruptions to the strengthening of women’s voices.

This year, for the first time, the festival screened Indian films. Each was followed by a talk with a member of the team behind the feature, in most cases the director. The domestic selections included Gurvinder Singh’s Adh Chanani Raat (Punjabi) and a special package curated by film writer Anna M. M. Vetticad titled ‘Origins of the New Malayalam New Wave’.

Check out more film festivals here.