19 February,2026 02:01 PM IST | Mumbai | Priyanka Sharma
Sapna Bhavnani
If things had gone as planned, Sapna Bhavnani would be unveiling the sixth edition of the Wench Film Festival at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) in Kolkata today. But events over the past week have compelled the filmmaker to cancel the Kolkata leg of the horror film festival.
Things came undone a week ago when the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) shared a few updates with her, which included the removal of SRFTI as the venue. "On February 11, SRFTI's PR manager informed me that they were told to put all festival activities on hold. A day later, my team member got an email from the I&B ministry in which they had mentioned the two films that they didn't clear for screening. Also, they removed SRFTI as the venue. We never heard directly from the institute," she shared.
With little time to arrange a new venue, Bhavnani had to cancel the screenings. She added, "It was too late for me to even set up a whole screening in Kolkata, in such short notice. Many of the filmmakers, whose films we were to screen, are also alumni of SRFTI, so they were naturally very excited for the festival. When we announced the cancellation, one of them said, 'âWe had already bought our tickets and booked a hotel on a non-refundable fee.' So, I thought we have to clear our name, because we have absolutely nothing to do with this. As a festival, we have done everything we were required to do. We needed an NOC, so we provided that. We were even setting up master classes for the college without budgets. They told us they would give us budgets but you didn't. But the point being is that there is still radio silence."
The cancellation hurt her on many levels, the filmmaker said. "It's been very sad for us, especially since this is a film school. I don't know what they have given into, what the backstory is, because they have not given us any idea, if it's censorship, or some pressure. Whatever it is, we don't know, but the point is, you're a film school. You should not be able to give into all this. As a film school, you should not even censor anything. Hence, I'm really disappointed at the way the whole thing went down. We have a great audience base in Kolkata that reaches out to us all the time, so a lot of people were very disappointed. I obviously refunded all the money for the passes that we had collected. And obviously, I'm going to cancel our MoU because we've not heard from SRFTI, and we don't want to work with someone who has kind of jeopardised our entire reputation of building such a massive festival."
This is not the only last minute development that the festival director had to deal with, as we learnt that National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) dropped out as the fest's Mumbai venue the same week. While Bhavnani had locked Alliance Francaise de Bombay for the Mumbai leg since the beginning itself, in months leading up to the festival, the filmmaker got to know that NFDC was open to collaborating with festivals for their venue.
"When we received that email, I was thrilled. I spoke to people at Alliance Francaise. I told them, 'We'll still be partners. We'll just move the venue there, and it might be really wonderful for our filmmakers to have a bigger theater.' We followed whatever protocol was needed to get a clearance from NFDC. In the meantime, we submitted our final selection of films to the censor and we got an NOC from them. Until then, our venue partners were SRFTI and Alliance Francaise. If we had to proceed ahead with NFDC, we needed a letter from them saying they were okay to screen our films. That letter has to be submitted to the censor. Then they said they were coming on board and we could use their logo. So, we began announcing that on our social media. But we still needed a formal letter of confirmation. That took some time and finally they sent us the letter confirming us as our venue partner. But as we began our promotions on social media, we saw that they weren't accepting our posts. I sent them an email last Thursday asking for clarity. In the evening, we received an email, saying, 'We're very sorry. Because of unforeseen circumstances, we can't be a venue partner.' Of course, the filmmakers were disheartened."
Putting this episode behind her, Bhavnani is directing energies towards the upcoming Mumbai leg of the festival, which is slated to take place at Alliance Francaise de Bombay from February 26 to March 1. "We love the vibe of this venue. They were always supposed to be our collaborators," Bhavnani said.
The feeling is mutual for Alliance Francaise de Bombay as its executive director Laurent Vergain said, "Our association with the Wench Film Festival over the past year has been a truly rewarding journey. We are excited about the upcoming festival this February, which promises a dynamic line-up of films and conversations. We look forward to welcoming cinephiles for another edition that celebrates imagination, diversity, and the power of cinema to connect communities."
The upcoming edition will feature 54 films, with filmmaker Ritesh Gupta's The Red Mask set to open the festival. While Mother of Flies, by Adams Family, will bring the curtains down on the horror/sci-fi/fantasy fest.
