Delegate Participation Touches all Time High at SiGNS 2016

KOCHI:
Over the course of four frenz
ied days at the ongoing SiGNS short film and documentary festival here, more than 1,000 delegates have registered entry. This makes the tenth edition of the popular cine extravaganza the best-attended in its history with one more day to go.
Organised by the Federation of Film Societies India (Kerala) in association with the Kochi Biennale Foundation, the festival has also seen a steep increase in delegate participation with large turnouts to the conversations and lectures taking place alongside the screenings.
According to the organisers, this edition has seen a significant rise in numbers compared to previous years. “Over the past decade, the SiGNS festival has built for itself a hard-earned reputation as a festival for diverse cinema and scholarship. This has been reflected in the high attendance this year, following a trend set at previous editions,” said C.S. Venkiteswaran, Artistic Director, SiGNS 2016.
“The rise in delegate participation, and particularly the increase in number of student delegates, serves this festival’s aim to open a new world of alternate visual possibilities and broker discourse with the younger generation,” he added.
Several educational institutions, mainly media and arts schools, have contributed to the surge in numbers bringing their students to the festival of contemporary film.
Nearly 200 short films and documentaries are being screened at the five day festival with separate sections like ‘International Window’, ‘Haiku movies’, ‘Artists cinema’, ‘Retrospective’, ‘Homage’ and ‘Focus’ adding to the diversity.
A jury lead by acclaimed documentary director Rakesh Sharma will announce the best short film and documentary from the competition section on Sunday, the concluding day of SiGNS 2016.