Habitat Film Festival
Date: May 8-17, 2015
Venue: India Habitat Centre

Best things in life are free. Given the fact that Habitat Film Club has brought together best of regional and Hindi cinema to Delhi audience as a part of the 10^Th Habitat film festival, we couldn’t agree more. The festival plays popular, retro and award winning films from various decades of Indian Cinema. There is no ticket for the movies. All you need to do is to collect passes from the IHC programme desk in advance. They have various shows running throughout the day. So one can pick and choose a movie based on their preference of time. All the regional films have English subtitles enabling Delhi audience to watch some of the finest cinema that is not available at their neighborhood picture hall. All the films were followed by audience interaction with the director / cast of the films.

This year they featured Kamal Haasan in the retrospective category. Some of his big hits – Ek Duje Ke Liye, Sagar, Vishwaroopam etc. were screened. In fact, Kamal Haasan was available on the first day for audience interaction.

Given our work schedules, we managed to watch some films. From the retro section we watched the immensely popular Ek Duje Ke Liye. We also watched the National award winner Chatushkone (Bangla) from regional cinema. We loved both the movies. They showed Haider as the concluding film of the festival.  Although it was slotted for a late 9 o clock start on a Sunday evening, we decided to live up-to the popularity of this film and watched it. Sadly, their management went slightly haywire for this show. Audience (including elderly people) had to queue up for very long to enter the auditorium since their last director interaction ran into extra time. People were allowed entry only after 9:10 and the 9 p.m. film started at a highly unpunctual 9:20!

Nevertheless, this is a great initiative. So cheers to this festival and we look forward to it in the years to come.