Festember, a student organised cultural extravaganza, has burgeoned over the years
to become one of the biggest of its kind. The fest, albeit being held for 4 days during
September, is in its truest sense, a year-long affair as it boasts events and outreaches
all year long, at Trichy, Bangalore and Chennai.
Rolling Reels Short-Film Festival (RRFF) is a non-profit, student-run organization
established in 2015. Presented by Festember, the biggest cultural festival of South-
India, RRFF is a one-day cinematic spectacle for budding filmmakers.
The aim of this venture is to establish a platform for young filmmakers to interact
and learn from the veterans in this field. The participants would be given a time
period of about 3 months to send in their entries after which the movies would be
filtered first by a preliminary panel of judges. The shortlisted movies are then
screened on the day of the Festival. These are judged by a line-up of A-list jury
comprising maestros of the film industry.
Aside from the event, RRFF also hosts an extravagant workshop and a panel
discussion on a topic that concerns our industry.
Up until 2014, Festember didn’t sport any event related to movie making. With a
hefty increase in new, young moviemakers taking the film industry by storm, it would
only seem sensible to instate a platform which would act as a springboard for young
talents. This lead to the incubation of RRFF, the first edition of the short film festival
was held in September 2015 and was a success through and through.
Venue: Annapurna International School of Film and Media, Hyderabad
Place No. of Registrations
India 118
International 9
Total 127
Panelists: Amala Akkineni
Balaji Mohan
Madhumitha Sundararaman
Late Sri Biren Das Sharma
Sainath Thottapalli
Winning entries:
Venue: Blue Ocean Film and Television Academy, Chennai
Place No. of Registrations
India 255
International 12
Total 267
Panelists: Late Sri Biren Das Sharma
Ashwin Saravanan
Ram Kisore Parcha
Pratap Pothen
T Ramalingam
Winning entries
Of the many celebrities over the years who have given us their constant
support, RRFF reached one of its critical milestones when Ulaga Naayaga Kamal
Haasan himself sent a personal support message to the young Film Festival team in
2016. We were also much fortunate to have received the support of Kollywood
Music Director, M Ghibran earlier.
Venue: L.V.Prasad Film and Television Academy, Chennai
Place No. of Registrations
India 271
International 32
Total 303
Panelists: R Velraj
Sreekar Prasad
DRK Kiran
Ravi K Chandran
Praveen Anthony
Santosh Sivan
Vignesh Shivan
Winning entries: