Chinese film “Wheat” directed by He Peng will kick-off the 40th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), on November 23, at Kala Academy.
“The 11-day festival, which will screen over 300 films, from November 23 to December 3, will be inaugurated by veteran actress Waheeda Rehman at Kala Academy at 5.30 pm,” Chief Minister Digamabar Kamat told reporters here.
Kamat further said that the Spanish film “Broken Embrace”, directed by Pedro Almodovar will be screened at the concluding function of the festival on December 3.
“Mamoothy will be chief guest at the closing ceremony,” he said.
Director of the Film Festivals (DFF) S M Khan said that this years IFFI will have several new sections.
“Apart from Indian Panorama, Indian premiere, country focus, continent focus, retrospectives, homage and tributes, cinema of the world, environment awards, short-films etc, this year’s edition will see several new sections including spoof films, Telugu musical hits, celebration of 75 years of Assamese cinema among others,” Khan said.
He also disclosed that legendary actress Waheeda Rehman, Tamil actress Asin and Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni will be present at the inauguration ceremony on Monday.
Giving further details, Khan said the ‘Cinema of the world’ section will showcase more than 55 films.
“Two Indian entries — Atanu Ghosh’s Bengali film “Angshumaner Chhobi” and Satish Manwar’s Marathi film “Gabricha Paus” — have been selected for the competition section, which has 13 other films from Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Kazakhstan, Iran, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Argentina,” he said.
Khan further said that the jury for the competition section is headed by noted director from Brazil, Joao Batista de Andrade.
“Other members of the jury are Vic Sarin (Canada), Kenichi Okubu (Tokyo), Sarika (India) and Jean-Michel Frodon (France),” he said adding “films from Croatia, Estonia, Italy and Poland will be featured in the country focus section.”
The retrospective section includes films by Indian-origin director Gurinder Chaddha, Nonzee Nimibutr (Thailand), Roland Reber (Germany) and Manoel Oliveira (Portugal).
The top prize at IFFI — the Golden Peacock for the festival’s best film — is Rs 40 lakh along with a golden peacock statuette, he said.
[Source]
