The Story
OrganizerWhen the first Guwahati International Film Festival opened on 28 October 2017 with a screening of Asghar Farhadi's Oscar-winning The Salesman, it marked a significant moment for cinema in Northeast India: the region's own state-backed international film festival, bringing world and Indian cinema to audiences in Assam. Inaugurated by the then Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, that first edition ran to 2 November and screened seventy-eight films from thirty-two countries across two venues, the Srimanta Sankaradev Kalakshetra and the Jyoti Chitraban film studio in Kahilipara.
GIFF is organised by the Jyoti Chitraban (Film Studio) Society, Assam's only government-owned film studio, with more than fifty years of service to the region's cinema, in association with the Dr. Bhupen Hazarika Regional Government Film and Television Institute and the support of the Government of Assam. Its stated objectives are to give creative filmmakers of the world a place to present quality film art, to help audiences understand diverse cultures, and to promote peace, freedom and friendship through cinema. The festival's programming blends acclaimed international titles, curated country and thematic packages, and a competitive short-film section, giving Guwahati audiences and regional filmmakers exposure to global cinema and a platform of their own.
Since 2017, GIFF has returned across subsequent years, with the 2020 edition postponed because of the pandemic, and has established itself as one of the Northeast's most important film events, alongside a wider ecosystem of Guwahati festivals. Held around late October and November at Jyoti Chitraban and the Kalakshetra, it has become a fixture of Assam's cultural calendar and a showcase for a region whose film culture, rooted in the legacy of figures like Bhupen Hazarika and Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, has long deserved a larger stage.
GIFF's significance lies in bringing a serious, government-backed international film festival to Northeast India, a region with a deep but nationally under-represented cinematic heritage. By screening world and Indian cinema in Guwahati and providing a competitive platform for short films, it exposes regional audiences and filmmakers to global work and connects the Northeast's film culture to wider currents. Anchored in the Jyoti Chitraban studio and named institutions honouring Bhupen Hazarika, the festival also affirms Assam's own cinematic legacy. As a state initiative, it demonstrates the use of a film festival to build cultural infrastructure and audiences in a region often overlooked in national cultural mapping.
As Northeast Indian cinema and storytelling gain wider recognition, GIFF matters as the region's flagship platform for connecting local film culture to the world. It gives Guwahati audiences access to international cinema they might not otherwise see, and gives regional filmmakers visibility and competition. For the Atlas, GIFF is a key node in mapping film culture and the creative economy of Northeast India, a part of the country whose cultural life merits fuller documentation.
