Indian Horror Film The Sigh

Indian Horror Movie Rocks at the International Student Film & Video Film Festival of Beijing

The film received a lot of appreciation for its narrative. “It manages to narrate a complex story well in a limited duration”, said a student participant at the festival after watching the film.

Film makers, professionals, cinema enthusiasts and young audience from China and all over the world came together last week at Beijing to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Beijing Film academy and to participate in the 9th International Student Film and Video Festival hosted by the academy.

With little sunlight in the day and chilling nights, the festival became a perfect autumn gift for Beijing film lovers with so many international films showcased at one venue.

One of the limelight of the event was the screening of the horror film “The Sigh” (Siski) made by Nikhil Sablaina, a Delhi based Dalit filmmaker from India. The film was Nikhil’s final diploma film at one of the film institute run by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute (SRFTI). It is unusual to come across a student film in the horror genre which made it one of the prime attractions and eagerly awaited screenings of this year’s festival. The film was screened twice with a packed theater of one thousand audiences each time receiving huge rounds of applause at the end of the screenings.

The film received a lot of appreciation for its narrative. “It manages to narrate a complex story well in a limited duration”, said a student participant at the festival after watching the film. Some felt the power of storytelling in the film was at par with Roman Polanski’s films.
The film also gave the audiences a slice of the Indian culture, which they seemed to love.

The film has Sudhir Raut and Sanchita Das in the main cast and Cinematography is done by Vinod Veerakumar, Audiography by Ratheesh Ravindran and Editing by Shubhojeet Bhattacharjee.

88 films from 46 countries were selected for screening out of the 826 entries received by the festival that began on 7th Nov 2010 at Beijing, capital of People’s Republic of China. The Principle of Beijing Film Academy and the President of the 9th ISFVF organizing committee, Professor Zhang Huijun, the leaders of the different departments of BFA, representatives of the International Association of Film and Television Schools and diplomats from the numerous foreign missions in China attended the festival. It was the 60th anniversary of Beijing film academy that made this year’s film festival a much bigger and important event and this was evident from the enthusiasm and excitement all around. The event has become a one of the biggest cultural event in Asia and a forum for exchange of thoughts over cinema at an international level.

Nikhil’s film “The Sigh” has also been showcased at “17th International Young Filmmakers Festival of Granada (Festival Internacional De Jovenes Realizadores de Granada), Granada, Spain”; “Portobello Film Festival, London, UK” and would be showcased later this month at “11th Student and Short Film Festival Sleepwalkers Tallinn, Estonia.”