At the beginning of the twenty-first century, globalization brought about a revolution in the film industry.
Films from abroad, especially Hollywood and Europe, became easily accessible to Indian audiences. But at the same time, the Asian films appreciated globally were not reaching to the Indian audience. Asian Film Foundation started organizing Third Eye Asian Film Festival with the aim of showing these films which got recognition at various international film festivals to the audience of Mumbai and other cities of Maharashtra.
The first Third Eye Asian Film Festival was held on August 3, 2002. Asian Film Festival is being organized in Mumbai for the last nineteen years.
The entries for films in various categories to be screened in the festival are invited from Asian countries. It is officially announced on the website www.thirdeyeasianfilmfestival.com of Asian Film Foundation.
The selection committee selects the best films, short films and documentaries for the festival.
Members of Selection Committee in the past years:-
Jayant Dharmadhikari, Vinay Newalkar, Raghuveer Kul, Ashok Rane, Shrikant Bojewar, Rekha Deshpande, Abhijit Deshpande, Ganesh Matkari, Santosh Pathare, Sandeep Manjrekar, Amit Chavan etc.
About fifty films and forty short films and documentaries from Asian countries like China, Kazakhstan, Japan, Iran, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Korea etc. are selected for the festival. A censorship exemption certificate is obtained from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India to screen these films in theatres during Film Festival.
Venues:- These selected films have been screened at Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan,Churchgate. P.L.Deshpande Maharashtra Kala Academy, Plaza Theatre, City Light in Mumbai. Apart from Mumbai, the festival is also organized in Pune and Kolhapur cities in collaboration with local film societies.
Eminent directors, artists, critics from Asian film industry are invited as jury for the competition section. Arun Khopkar, Abu Sayeed, Meenakshi Shedde, Premendra Mazumdar, Puran Derakhshudeh, Marjan Alizadeh, Masha Novikova, Sandeep Sawant, Prakash Kunte, Anant Bhave, etc. have worked as a jury in the Asian festival so far.
