The Story
OrganizerEmami Art, the contemporary art gallery and cultural space founded by the Kolkata-based Emami Group, has been one of India's most significant private art institutions since its establishment, presenting international contemporary art exhibitions, residencies, and cultural programming. The Experimental Film Festival emerged from Emami Art's recognition that experimental film and video art, which occupy a space between visual art and cinema, were almost entirely absent from both India's gallery programme and its film festival circuit. By situating the festival in a gallery context rather than a cinema, it repositions experimental film as visual art rather than as marginal cinema, which is both programmatically and institutionally appropriate.
India has a small but active community of experimental filmmakers and video artists, and almost no dedicated annual platform for their work. The Emami Art Experimental Film Festival fills this gap with institutional backing from one of Kolkata's most significant private art organisations. The gallery context matters: presenting experimental film in an art space rather than a cinema changes how audiences encounter and understand the work.
India's only significant annual gallery-based experimental film festival, occupying the gap between visual art and cinema that mainstream film festivals and gallery programmes both overlook.
