Festival honours sports films

Kolkata: Iranian film Muddy Foot (2025), directed by Mohammad-Ebrahim Azizi, won the ‘Best Fiction Film Award' at the fourth International Sports Film Festival of India (ISFFI) that concluded in the city on Sunday.This year's edition of ISFFI screened 36 films from 17 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Iran, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, and India, offering a diverse range of narratives across fiction, documentaries, and extreme sports genres.
Set against the backdrop of football, Muddy Foot impressed the international jury with its intense moral exploration. According to the jury citation, the film was awarded "for its powerful portrayal of football as a site of moral conflict, transforming personal loss into a sharp critique of corruption."The Best Non-Fiction Film Award went to Australia's Don't Look Away (2025), directed by Ashley Malcolm Morrison. The documentary narrates the extraordinary story of an athlete's silent protest and was praised "for its moving depiction of how sport and courage intersect in history."The Best Film on Extreme Sports Award was presented to the Bulgarian documentary Parallel World (2024), directed by Aleksandar Valchev. The jury commended the film "for revealing a hidden sporting universe where passion, risk, and endurance exist far beyond mainstream recognition." The 21-minute documentary offers an immersive glimpse into extreme sports pursued at the very limits of human capability.A Special Jury Mention was awarded to the Indian documentary Folk Games of Bengal (2024), directed by Dhananjoy Mandal. The Bengali-language film was recognised "for sensitively documenting vanishing traditions of play and preserving the cultural roots of sport and community." The documentary highlights nearly extinct indigenous games from rural Bengal, underlining the deep connection between sport and cultural identity.The closing ceremony featured a special talk show with legendary sports personalities Prabir Mitra, Gopi Nath Ghosh, Chitta Biswas (Chiranjib) and Sadhan Dutta who shared memories recalling the historic 1975 World Table Tennis Championship held in Kolkata, marking its 50th anniversary this year.On this occasion, the Croatian government sent a special film highlighting the life and achievements of World Table Tennis champion Yugoslavian Antun Tova Šipančić and his historic 1975 connection with the City of Joy.