Film festivals face the funding cut
As India’s love for movies fuels the mainstream, indie film circuits are struggling to make ends meet
BySamreen Wani
Last Updated: Aug 31, 2026, 15:46 IST8 min
From the 07 August, 2026 issue
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Indian indie film festivals face severe funding cuts & poor institutional support. Many struggle, causing cancellations (MAMI) despite govt funds. Organizers self-fund, hindering growth & market development.
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Chidananda S Naik made his short film Whispers and Echoes in 2021 on a shoestring budget, without studio lights, professional crew or production support. “I even used to wait to use my friend’s camera,” Naik recalls. With no financial backing to hire distributors or buy ad space, he scoured film festivals that allowed submissions with zero entry fees, hoping to get his films in front of an audience. It led to his debut at the Bengaluru International Short Film Festival (BISFF), run by Anand Varadaraj.
Years later, Naik’s FTII-produced short Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know…, made in his native Kannada, won the prestigious La Cinef award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024. “Life has changed drastically after that. It has opened doors and gotten me associated with the right people,” he says. The 30-year-old also received a €15,000 grant for the win, which he is using to develop his next project—his first full-length feature in Kannada.
Naik’s trajectory encapsulates the promise of the film festival ecosystem. But unlike marquee showcases such as Cannes—which operates with a roughly €20 million budget, backed by government and private funding—or Venice, Toronto and Locarno, the story of India’s film festival circuit is a different one.
Director Chidananda Naik
Despite the ‘laurel wreath’ on film posters signifying that a film has been selected for or has been feted at a festival, and, thereby, is a project that has earned critical acclaim, the ecosystem that produces these films in India remains without robust institutional support. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) allocates funds under the Development, Communication and Dissemination of Filmic Content (DCDFC) to the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) for “the creation, innovation and dissemination of film content”, says a release by the Press Information Bureau. And while that corpus nearly tripled in two years—from ₹127 crore in FY23 to ₹340.68 crore in FY25—some festival directors feel state support remains inadequate.
First Published: Aug 31, 2026, 16:44
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