The theme for the two-day festival is “Dialogues in Diversity”, and features “films, both old and new, that explore the aesthetic and politics of filmmaking from the woman’s perspective,” says Jai Chandiram of IAWRT, which is organising the festival. On the platter, apart from struggles and crusades against stereotypes, are subjects like art (Defiant Art), music (The Shillong Chamber Choir and the Little Home School) and a story of Mumbai that unfolds through food and land (Cosmopolis: Two Tales of a City).

The world of short films and documentaries is crowded with women, so it is fitting that the festival will premiere US-based Alexis Krasilovsky’s 2007 documentary Women Behind the Camera which explores the trials and survival stories of camera-women in a male-dominated profession in India, Afghanistan, Iran, China, Japan and the US. The other film to be premiered at the festival is Understanding Trafficking in which director Ananya Chakraborti turns the camera towards the borders of India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Delhi-based filmmaker Gargi Sen, whose collaborative work with Priyanka Mukherjee called Rehana will be staged on Sunday, is upbeat that “viewership and awareness for non-commercial films is rising”. Rehana talks about a mother of six who becomes a crusader for social change. Also part of the festival are two animation films — Say No to Plastic and Mukand and Riaz, about two friends separated during Partition.