NEW DELHI: Renowned Music director Bappi Lahiri’s directorial debut short film ‘World Love Peace and Harmony’ will have its premiere at the Second Kolkata Shorts International Film Festival on 24 August.

Seventy-four films from fourteen countries are expected to be screened at the festival which is an amalgamation of unleashed cinematic creativity and madness of cine-goers of Kolkata and its objective is to give momentum to the short cinema and foster the growth of a new breed of filmmakers. The festival will be held in different screening rooms at Hotel Tulip INN at Park Street, according to festival director Rambhul Singh who is also an award winning filmmaker.

The main attractions of the festival are shorts films like ‘Scenes from Suburbia’ which is a collage of three heartfelt stories directed by Sowrik Dutta, ‘Jo Jo Lalli’ directed by Sandeep Malani which is a romantic drama based on AIDS awareness, the documentary ‘Bhopal Shed-Unsaid’ directed by Syed Samar Mehdi telling the story of the after effects of the Bhopal carbide gas plant tragedy, the Bengali short films ‘Bheja Chitti’ directed by Rishin Banerjee, ‘Ekti Choto Chobi‘ directed by Indrani Chakrabarti and ‘Self’ directed by Avishek Dutta.

International short films ‘Lao’ directed by Gabriele Sabatino Nardis from Italy tells the story after a disaster, ‘Efeito Casimiro’ directed by Clarice Saliby from Brazil tells the story of an alien’s appearance, and ‘Traumfrau’ directed by Oliver Schwarz from Switzerland deals with relationship and loneliness.

The festival jury includes two Bengali films directors Raja Sen and Pinaki Choudhuri who are both national award winning directors and known for their quality films in Bengali cinema. The jury includes Dr. D C Singh, a film scholar and researcher.

In addition to film screenings, a master class on ‘promotion, marketing, distribution and revenue generations through short films’ also be conducted. Beside that, the festival offers professional networking opportunities with special short films packages. KSIFF is also observing ‘100 years of Indian Cinema’ with this festival.

KSIFF-13 is conducted by Miniboxoffice, a Noida based short films marketing, promotion and film festival organizing company. It has established short film festivals in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Bhopal and the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival and Indian Cine Film Festival in Noida.