Vertical City bags London Intl short film fest award

MUMBAI: The London International Documentary Festival 2011 chose a documentary on Mumbai titled Vertical City and has awarded it a Special Mention award in the Best Short Film category.

Directed by Avijit Mukul Kishore, the film shared this honour with two others – One Day in Smara from Spain and Martin the Ghost from Norway.

Vertical City is a 34-minute film produced by Public Service Broadcasting Trust.

“A visual essay on the architecture of contemporary Bombay. The State imagined these constructions as the realisation of an urban utopia, but in the far suburb of the city, residents from slums are given free houses in decrepit and dysfunctional high-rise building complexes. A occurrence only too frequent in too many suburbs of too many cities,” was the description of Vertical City on the official website of the festival.

The festival that presented more than 140 works from 44 countries, was held in London from 13 to 28 May.