Festival In Focus: Alternativa Film Project Head Liza Surganova Talks Second Edition, New Industry Days Strand & Event’s “Nomadic” Nature

deadline.com:

As this year’s Alternativa Film Project kicks off, the second edition will see the event land in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, moving from last year’s location in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where it hosted its Alternativa Film Awards.

Founded by technology company InDrive, the global non-profit film initiative is looking to grow into one of Asia’s premiere film events, with a mission to give international visibility to filmmakers whose work has potential to bring social change.

Describing itself as a “nomadic project,” the event will look to set up camp each year in a different location.  “From the very beginning, the concept of the awards was that it should be nomadic and move from one region to another,” Alternativa Film Project head Liza Surganova tells Deadline. “Last year, we started in Central Asia, with this choice mainly pushed by InDrive having the biggest office there.

We felt like this region was quite overlooked and not really researched by film programmers, and also did not have many events happening there in terms of the international film scene.” Surganova notes that it planned to keep the second edition of the event in Asia, before moving to another continent, and that Southeast Asia stood out for its growing and vibrant film industry.  “Southeast Asia’s film industry is developing quite fast, and many new names are appearing, but it is not as well-developed compared to Japan, South Korea or India’s film industries, so we felt like we could bring something there that will benefit local filmmakers,” she says. “Indonesia is one of the centers of the region where people from other countries are used to coming to.” Impactful Stories The Alternativa Film Awards, which takes place at the end of the event on November 29,