Chennai International Documentary and Short Film Festival

12th Chennai International Documentary  and  Short Film Festival 2024 20-29 February; multiple venues, Chennai  International Documentaries : Non Competition  Finding Enok, Coping with Our Colonial Past Dir: Dorna Xandre van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal; 01:06:10; Netherlands; Documentary; Non Competition  In 1911 in the Dutch Indies, Emile van Rouveroy, a young Dutch planter, fathered a daughter with his housekeeper Enok, a local Sundanese girl of 15 years old. He legitimized her and raised Nelly, as she was called, in his (white) family. Nelly and her mother never saw each other again.110 years later, 2 of his grandchildren, Dorna van Rouveroy and Maurice Boyer, are looking for traces of Enok, her fellow sufferers and descendants. Sospesi Dir: Martina Dall & Ara; 01:29:33; Italy; Documentary; Non Competition IN SUSPENSE is a collection of faces, voices and stories from 50 countries around the world. Through the director’s extens...

12th Chennai International Documentary  and  Short Film Festival 2024 20-29 February; multiple venues, Chennai Indian Documentaries :  Competition Seed Stories Dir: Chitrangada Choudhury; 42:00; India; Documentary; Competition In a village in the Niyamgiri mountains of the Eastern Ghats in Odisha, eastern India, a heroic effort is underway: barefoot ecologist Dr. Debal Deb and his 3 member-team are conserving over one thousand endangered heirloom varieties of rice, the world’s largest project of its kind.  Odisha’s Eastern Ghats region is one of the world’s surviving biodiversity hotspots, with farmers and shifting cultivators, particularly from Adivasi (Indigenous) communities like the Kondhs possessing the knowledge of growing multiple crops with their own heirloom seeds, evolved over centuries. At the same time, the village and the wider region is irreversibly changing with the coming of genetically modified Bt and herbicide-tolerant cotton seeds and associated ag...