Osian’s Cinefan, the annual film festival that has firmly entrenched itself in the city’s cultural calendar, will begin its 11th edition on Friday.

The lens, surprisingly, will be trained on Indian cinema for the first time.

A section called NewStream Cinema, focussing on films that have redefined mainstream cinema, will be introduced this year. Kaminey, Dev D and Oye Lucky Lucky Oye expectedly make the cut, but there are a few surprising additions as well. Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal, which was seen by critics as a largely predictable film, and R K Gupta’s Aamir have been included in the category.

The film screenings will be followed by panel discussions with filmmakers Anurag Kashyap, Imtiaz Ali, Dibakar Banerjee and Vishal Bhardwaj.

Speaking to Newsline, Director-General of the festival, Mani Kaul said, “Our programme will range from uncompromising experimentation in films, to an archival kind of cross reference between cinemas of the world, to an articulation of an emerging, thinking cinema in India.”

An exhibition of memorabilia, a tribute to the rich history of Indian cinema, will also accompany the festival. Popular art from studios such as Bombay Talkies in the 1930s, artefacts from films of Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt and Amitabh Bachchan’s films in the 1970s will be showcased along with memorabilia of contemporary cinema.

Neville Tuli, Osian’s chairman, said this was part of the task “to obsessively build the world’s largest collection of Indian and Asian art and popular cultural artefacts”. Osian’s will also confer its lifetime achievement award to Gulzar, who is scheduled to deliver a lecture on Sunday at Siri Fort.