The Hindu : National : Over 150 films to be screened at Kerala international festival

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Over 150 films to be screened at Kerala international festival

Special Correspondent

14 films, including 4 Indian productions, will vie for Golden Crow Pheasant award

A.R. Rahman, Rasool Pookutty, Gulzar and Mrinal Sen to be felicitated
For the first time there will be a Lifetime Achievement Award in International Cinema

PANAJI: The 14th edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), scheduled to be held at Thiruvananthapuram from December 11 to December 18, will screen around 156 films from 50 countries.

Chairman of the Kerala State Chalachithra Academy (KSCA) K.R. Mohan told journalists on Thursday that nine Cuban films would be screened in the Country Focus segment in commemoration of the 50th year of the Cuban revolution. Noted Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck and Thai filmmaker Pen-Ek Ratanaruang would make their presence felt at the festival’s Contemporary Masters’ in Focus segment.

Vice-chairman V.K. Joseph and general council member J.P. Ramchandran were present at the media-briefing.

Three Oscar award winners, A.R. Rahman, Rasool Pookutty and Gulzar, and veteran filmmaker Mrinal Sen would be felicitated at the festival.

The Homage section would pay tributes to the memory of Malayalam actors Murali, Adoor Bhawani and Rajan P. Dev, poet and story writer Kamala Surayya and film producers Sobhana Parameswaran Nair and K.P. Thomas.

Fourteen films, including four Indian productions, would vie for the prestigious Golden Crow Pheasant award of Rs.10 lakh in the competition section. They were chosen from nearly 300 films, the KSCA chairman said. Two Malayalam productions included in this section were “Sufi Parangna Katha” and “Madhyavenal.”

The festival for the first time would confer a Life-time Achievement Award in International Cinema, comprising a sculpture, a certificate and a purse of Rs.2 lakh. It would be given away at the inaugural ceremony.

Better festival

The organisers exuded confidence that the festival, which attracted around 8000 delegates from within the country as well as abroad last year, would scale grater heights this year. Mr. Mohanan disclosed that the government of Kerala was trying to expedite the construction of a festival complex to overcome the constraints of captive infrastructure.

The festival would showcase retrospectives of legendary Indian filmmakers Mrinal Sen, Mexican filmmaker Arturo Ripstein, Japanese director Mikio Naruse, French filmmaker Jacques Tati and Malayalam filmmaker Lohitadas. Malayalam Cinema Today would host seven contemporary films in its array.

Seven films had been included in the Indian Cinema Now section — three in Marathi, two in Bengali and one each in Hindi and Telugu.

The on-line registration of delegates has begun on the website www.iffk.in.

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