Chennai, Nov 13 (IANS): Two Indian films -- director Sagar Puranik's Kannada film 'Dollu' and Vivek Rajendra Dubey's Marathi film 'Funeral' -- are among the nine films that have been shortlisted for the Debut competition at the 52nd International Film Festival of India (IFFI).

Announcing the line-up of films for the Debut competition on Saturday, the organisers of the film festival, in a statement said that the festival had been a launch pad to several filmmakers over the years and that this section was aimed at bringing out the best first-time filmmakers of the year.

The seven other films that have made it to the line up are director Ruben Sainz's Spanish/Brazilian/Portuguese film 'Magoado', director Arash Aneessee's Iranian film 'Maman', director Dimitris Kanellopoulos's Greek film 'Pack of Sheep', director Janno Jurgens's Estonian/Russian film 'Rain', director Laura Lehmus's German film 'Sweet Disaster', director Simon Farriol's Spanish film 'The Wealth of the World' and director Mari Alessandrini's film 'Mapudungun'.

Kannada film 'Dollu', which features newcomers Karthik Mahesh and Nidhi Hegde in the lead, had won the Dada Saheb Phalke Award for the Best Kannada movie at the Innovative International Film Festival.