What an amazing time to live in Austin and be a film lover. Voted as “Best International Passport” by the Austin Chronicle, the Indie Meme Film Festival (IMFF) is back for its fourth year and you won’t want to miss it!
IMFF is held over four days and takes place on April 14 and April 26-28 at AFS Cinema. By the way, AFS Cinemas was just featured in Variety as one of the Art House Theatres helping to build and support local cinephile communities. So double win!
What is IMFF all about?
Founded by two visionary women, Alka Bhanot and Tripti Bhatnagar, IMFF showcases culturally diverse and socially relevant independent films from South Asian countries including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and more. This year, the award-winning festival will bring filmmakers from across the world to celebrate their feature-length and short films right here in the heart of Austin. They aim to connect the audience with the makers of the films and celebrate them for their creative genius.
What to expect
I couldn’t be more excited to catch some of the films coming to IMFF that include 20 films from 7 countries in 9 languages with 5 International Filmmakers in attendance! As far as film festivals go, that’s a pretty sweet line-up for filmgoers to enjoy. There will be a mix of fiction, documentary and short films.
The opening night film is “The Last Color” by Vikas Khanna.
International award-winning chef and TV personality Khanna not only owns a Michelin star restaurant in New York, but he’s also a known author, philanthropist, and now filmmaker. The film will be followed by the opening night party at Urban, An American Grill at the Westin Domain.
The closing night film is “Kaamyaab” by Hardik Mehta. Mehta is an Indian screenwriter and director. His short documentary, “Famous in Ahmedabad” (2015), won the Golden Lotus at the 63rd National Film Awards for Best Non-Feature Film and was In Competition at 2016 HotDocs Toronto. He has also co-written the screenplay of Director Vikramaditya Motwane’s most recent survival-thriller, “Trapped” (2017). “Round Figure” is his first feature film.
For the full line-up of films and filmmakers click here.
Events you won’t want to miss
IMFF 2019 kicks off on Sunday, April 14 with a family film day.
Schedule includes:
3 PM – 4 PM
- Youth Program including 5 short films. (US/ Austin/ English)
- Q&A with the young Filmmakers in attendance
4 PM – 6 PM
- “Gubbare”(India/Short film/10 min 30 sec /Hindi) A girl selling balloons meets a lonely old man at a park. This light-hearted story about childhood and old age reminds us about the importance of enjoying the little happy moments in life even after all its sorrows.
- “Chuskit” (India/ Fiction /1hr 30 min/ Ladaki) To chase her dream of going to school in her remote Himalayan village, a feisty paraplegic girl locks horns with her unyielding, tradition-bound grandfather.
- Skype QA with filmmaker Priya Ramasubban
Badges for IMFF 2018 can be purchased here. We will see you there! And stayed tuned for all our IMFF coverage on Shuffle Online.
You can follow Indie Meme Film Festival on Facebook, Twitter and visit their website for more information on the festival.
Catherine grew up watching action flicks at a very young age which led to her love of film. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelors in Radio-TV-Film in 2012. Always the adventurer, Catherine traveled and lived in Sydney, Australia for a year where she took a selfie with Brad Pitt. She runs Shuffle with passion, lots of caffeine and tacos. When she’s not editing or writing you can find her crafting and planning her next adventure.