NEW DELHI: The Films Division, which organises the Mumbai International Film Festival for Short, Documentary and Animation films every second year, has decided to do away with the Animation category under the Indian competition section in view of the poor quality of entries received in previous editions.

It has decided that all Animation films will now be entered into the International competition section of the Festival expected to be held from 3 to 9 February next year at the National Centre for Performing Arts (also known as Tata Centre) in Mumbai.

The Division has already held two meetings in Mumbai and Delhi to seek opinion of filmmakers and others on its proposals for the next edition. It has now sought written views on its proposals for MIFF 2014.

To avoid confusion with regular feature films, it has decided to rename its category of fiction films as ‘Short Fiction Films’ and to restrict the maximum duration to 40 or 50 minutes instead of 70 minutes.

There will be two sections of documentary films in the international competition: one below and the other above forty minutes. There will also be a fiction section of up to forty to fifty minutes in both Indian and international sections. There will be a documentary section in the Indian competition and an animation category in the international competition.

The Festival will also have Information Section, Retrospectives / Special Packages, and a Marketing Section.

There is a proposal to have two cut-off dates (for sending entries for selection in Indian Competition section only) to ease the process of pre-selection of films: 31 July for films completed before 30 May and 15 September for films being completed by 31 August.

Apple ProRes (HQ) is being proposed the default screening format for the festival and also for sending competition entries.