Many players stepped in to change the face of Indian animation industry and the outlook of people towards it. Out of all, one of them is Ankush Nandi’s IIACFF (Indian International Animation and Cartoon Film Festival), a festival that is dedicated solely to animation filmmakers and animation industry.
Comprised of industry stalwarts like Soumitra Ranade, Saurabh Shukla, Pankaj Sudheer Mishra, Satyajit Bhatkal, Faisal Mohamed, Gurupal Singh, Suparna Dutta and many others, IIACFF, which saw its second year this February, aimed to promote and implement animation as a curriculum in schools from grass root level.
However, Nandi’s interest in animation peeked at a very young age. In 2004, his father came up with an animation production house in Kolkata and started the production of Pagla Dasu – a story by the great filmmaker Satyajit Ray. “I used to visit his work place almost every day while returning from school. That’s when animation and film-making started attracting me,” he fondly recalls. He was beguiled by the process, the creativity and the advanced technology that has been used. “It was new to me and all in all a different experiment.” After passing higher secondary, he made up his mind to take up animation and film-making as his career.
The festival showcases overseas animated films which haven’t been screened in India. During the festival, parents are also encouraged to attend seminars and talk shows to shape their opinion about the animation industry. Along with this, “The festival seeks to create a platform for the upcoming animators to showcase their most inspired work and also provide placement to the winners,” adds Nandi.
Nandi invites school and college students of all age groups to participate in this program. Discussing the structure of the event, he says, “The competition is held zone wise (east, west, north and south).” The winners of East-South Zonal Competition and North-West Zonal Competition compete in the finale, out of which a winner is chosen. “We don’t think that any other festival has been divided in so parts and have their own zonal competitions.”
Nandi believes that the Indian animation industry is constantly evolving and has witnessed unprecedented growth rates in recent times. With global players exploring India as a talent pool for animation content and Indian filmmakers looking out for subjects with a “broad mass appeal”, there is a huge potential for the growth of the animation world in the country.
“Leading Indian production houses like Tata and Reliance are now investing in the animation market and collaborating with Indian filmmakers to make animated features that entertain their local audiences,” he highlights. “VFX has now become an important part of any film or advertisement.” According to him, the animation industry has huge business potential in India and is beginning to scale new heights. Encouraging the youth in taking up animation and VFX as their career, he persuades, “The animation industry is also tying-up and flourishing in other sectors like architecture, medical, automobile, forensic etc which is automatically creating more and more job opportunities for youth in this sector.”
How does he plan to harness the talent that is already present, and channelise it to meet the industry standards? By encouraging the youth of the country to take animation as a career through their festival. He replies, “We organise different kinds of seminars and workshops for both parents and students to shape their opinion on animation industry and its future prospect.” The winners are placed in different production houses across the country. “I think no other festival in the country has placement partner category. It’s the only festival that ties up with different production houses to provide placements to the winners.”
Besides animation, the festival also organises PC gaming competitions in different animation institutions and is planning to do the same in schools to encourage the youth to think about Game Development as their career option in near future.
When asked about IIACFF’s contribution to the Indian animation industry, Nandi humbly answers, “As IIACFF is in its second edition, there is nothing huge that it has contributed to the industry. But we are in a process to boost the animation industry of India and bring in more and more talented youth in the industry.” Their new initiative of implementing animation and photography in schools from elementary level has garnered a positive response from schools, who are now giving a serious thought to include animation and photography in their regular curriculum. Tuk-Tuk – The Fisherwoman by Suresh Eriyat was screened first in the first edition of IIACFF. The film received a number of nominations thereafter and also went on to win the National Award. “With the number of entries coming in good numbers, the competition got tougher and the quality of the movies got better than the last year.”
The first edition of IIACFF was held from 1-4 October, 2015, in Delhi. The famous actor and comedian Javed Jaffrey was the National Brand Ambassador of the program. To take the festival a notch higher this year, it catered to schools and colleges. IIACFF representatives were present in different zones and personally met school and college principals to execute the launch of their newly included competitions.
What does he think about the challenges and the struggles of this industry? “Whenever someone is entering the animation industry he / she must be mentally prepared of all the hurdles that will come their way and should have the ability to overcome them. One should have patience to withstand themselves with all the odds coming their way.” He elaborates, “Monetary struggle is one of the biggest one. At the beginning most of the people work at a very less wage or no wage at all but as they move forward, work hard and enhance their talent, the monetary struggle slowly moves away.” His experience says that one needs to be tough mentally. If your work gets rejected even after giving 200 per cent, you should not stop trying. “For the new comers, I can only say that work hard and don’t think about the result. With dedication and endurance, you will eventually succeed,” he further states.
So what does the young and budding festival have in store for the future? “There are a lot of plans that are under process and will be executed gradually, step by step.” Currently, they are only concentrating on implementing animation as a curriculum in different schools across the country and are creating a much bigger platform for the upcoming animators to showcase their work.
The third edition of the festival will be held in February, 2018. We wish that it achieves the colossal target of bringing animation to academics!