The homage category in the 16th International Film Festival of Kerala will screen movies of eminent personalities whose absence has left a huge void in the world of cinema. The category comprises seven films including four of Raoul Ruiz and one each of Mani Kaul, Tareque Masud and Elizabeth Taylor. The films are: Genealogies of a Crime, Mysteries of Lisbon, That Day, Three Lives and Only One Death (all of Raoul Ruiz), Our Daily Bread (Mani Kaul), Runway (Tareque Masud), and
Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Elizabeth Taylor)
Raoul Ruiz or Raúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino was born in Chile on July 25, 1941. Ruiz was a film maker who never stuck to just one style of film making, and was known for his vividness of style in each film. He started his career as a play writer for the ‘Avant-Garde Theatre’, where he wrote over 100 plays. His first film to hit the silver screen was Tres Tristes Tigres in 1968. But due to his political views, he was made to flee to Paris, where he found a place for his films. This eminent film director and writer passed away on 19th August 2011 in Paris.
His most famous works are to be screened in the fest. The film Genealogies of a Crime ( Généalogies d'un crime ), written and directed by Ruiz, is the story of a lawyer, Solange, known for taking up hopeless cases. She takes up the case of Rene who is accused of murdering his wealthy Aunt Jeanne and who was of the same age as her dead son. The movie deals with the case and how it changed the life of Solange forever. Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli and Melvil Poupaud play the lead roles.
Mysteries of Lisbon or Mistérios de Lisboa revolves around the life of a countess, a business man and a young orphan, with Adriano Luz, Maria João Bastos and Ricardo Pereira playing the lead roles. That Day ( Ce jour-là ), a comedy-crime-drama, is the story of Livia, a spoiled society woman and Pointpoirot, a serial killer on the run. Pointpoirot is assigned to kill Livia, on orders of her family, but they fall in love. This film stars Bernard Giraudeau, Elsa Zylberstein and Jean-Luc Bideau.
Trois vies & une seule mort or Three Lives and Only One Death tells the story of a man with four names and four different personalities. Which of them is real is the plot of the film. Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Galiena and Marisa Paredes are the lead cast of the film.
Filmmaker, writer and producer Mani Kaul started his career with Uski Roti in 1969, which won the Filmfare Critics Award for the best movie. Known for his experimental techniques in cinema, Kaul departed on the July 6, 2011.
The festival includes his film ‘Uski Roti’ or ‘Our Daily Bread’, which was acclaimed as the “Key film of New Indian Cinema”. The movie is about the life of a woman and her truck-driver husband. She waits for him every day with his daily bread. But she starts doubting her husband which results in the gradual dying of their relationship. Garima and Gurdeep Singh enacted the role of wife and husband.
Bangladeshi director and writer Tareque Masud was known for his films Muktir Gaan (1995) and Matir Moina (2002) for which he won the International Critics’ Prize and FIPRESCI Prize for Directors’ Fortnight at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. These two movies also made him the recipient of many international awards. This famed director was born on December 6,1956 and passed away on August 13, 2011 in a road accident on the way to Dhaka from the sets of his film.
IFFK includes his film Runway , staring Fazlul Haque, Rabeya Akter Moni and Ali Ahsan. This movie is of young poor Rahul, who lives besides the runway of an international airport. His lives with his mother and sister, and there is no news of his father who went in search of a job in the Middle-East. The frustrated jobless Rahul meets Arif, who takes him to a new world of intolerance, violence and ultimately, death.
World renowned Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor was born Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor in London, on February 27, 1932. There’s One Born Every Minute in 1942 was her first film, at the age of ten. But MGM’s, National Velvet (1944) made her famous and a star. Taylor won two Academy Awards for Best Actress for her performance in Butterfield 8 in 1960, and for Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). She died due to congestive heart failure on March 23, 2011.
The homage category shows Academy Award winning film Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , directed by Mike Nichols. Set on the campus of a small New England college, the film focuses on the impulsive relationship of George, associate history professor, and his hard-drinking wife Martha. Taylor played the role of Martha while George was played by Richard Burton.
