Ballia Film Festival

The first Ballia Film Festival took place from 10-11 September 2011. The festival was organized by cinema of resistance in collaboration with Bhallia Sankalp, one of the key theatre groups of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. The Ballia Film Festival has an interesting relationship with the Gorakhpur film festival. The brochure of Gorakhpur film festival reached Ballia in 2007 and Sankalp performed at the 2011 edition of the Gorakhpur film festival. This prompted Sankalp to start the Ballia Film Festival in 2011 in collaboration with cinem of resistance. The national convenor of cinema of resistance Mr.Sanjay Joshi participated in the festival and Pranay Krishan, General Secretary of Jan SanskritiManch gave the key note address. Films such as Voices from Baliapal, Garam Hawa, Red Balloon and Bhumika were screened at the festival. Live translation to Hindi was done for the film Voices FromBaliapal. The audience particularly liked the film Garam Hawa. The main organisers of the festival were Ashish Trivedi and Sankalp theatre group.