IBW 2016: Film festival gathers an audience

Yes, the India Bike Week is all about the bikes, the sweet sound of the exhaust and the custom jobs. But there is more to a motorcyclists life than just that. India Bike Week is also all about documenting the adventurous journey and presenting it with a unique style. And to do just that, the India Bike Week 2016 played host to their first ever film festival.

India Bike Week opened entries for the film festival in December last year. Entires closed 25th January. Interested participants could send short films or videos of their epic journey. Judging of the film festival was based on four categories. The Milestones category was for non-motorcycling travel stories. These films could have a maximum screen time of 1 hour. The My motorcycle and me was all about the rider and his adventures presented in a video of under 10 minutes. The third category, Two-wheeler talkies gave aspiring filmmakers a little more liberty with a cap of 1 hour. And lastly, Ride with my Pride, for all films based on biking club stories. The esteemed panel of judges included, famous Bollywood filmmakers Imtiaz Ali and Arif Ali, motorcycling enthusiast Pankaj Trivedi and Privateer filmmaker Gaurav Jani. 

In its first ever film festival, the India Bike Week saw 135 entries from across the countries of which select 25 were screened. Hari M Mohanan from Kerala took top honors in the Milestones category for beautifully capturing the story of a chai walla who travelled they world with his wife. In the Motorcycle and Me class, Arun Kumar from Bangalore was awarded the best video for his film titled 1,400km | 16 days. Pune-based Shweta Jangir’s The Motorcyclist emerged victorious in the Two Wheeler Talkies category while Sunny Sawrav won in the Ride with my Pride category for his 7 minute video Bajaj Avenger Club.