In less than a fortnight, the city’s film aficionados will be able to watch French drama, Greek adventure and Indian nostalgia, at the 10 edition of the Chennai International Film Festival (CIFF).
Presented by The Hindu and Casa Grande Private Limited, and organised by tzhe Indo Cine Appreciation Foundation (ICAF), the festival is set to draw world film enthusiasts into its eight venues in the city.
The eight-day festival, which is financially being supported by the government of Tamil Nadu, will begin on December 13 and promises close to 160 films from over 57 countries. The festival will also be celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema.
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E. Thangaraj, festival director, and general secretary, ICAF said on Sunday that the festival has been growing exponentially each year, and has developed from a two-screen to an eight-screen event within a decade.
Acclaimed French film ‘Amour’, South-Korean film ‘Pieta’, Bangladeshi film ‘Pleasure boy Komala’ and Japanese film ‘Departures’, will be among those screened in the world cinema segment. There will also be movies from Colombia, Australia, Hungary and Turkey among others in the country focus section.
M. Arunkumar, managing director, Casa Grande Private Limited, said, “Cinema has a strong rub-off effect, and bringing international films to Chennai will only raise the bar.” he said.
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To mark 100 years of Indian cinema, movies such as ‘Chandralekha’, ‘Mega Sandhesham’, ‘Pather Panchali’, ‘Guide’ and ‘Karnan’ will also be screened. Suhasini Maniratnam, core committee member, who was speaking on behalf of the film and television fraternity, said there would be two important inaugurations during the festival. “The Rani Seethai hall has converted one of their auditoriums into a state-of-the-art movie hall which will be inaugurated on December 14 and a revamped Casino theatre will be inaugurated on December 15,” she said.
There will also be a Tamil short film competition and in which winners will be chosen from among 21 entries. Of these, 12 short-listed films will be screened during the festival. Nirupama Subramanian, associate editor, The Hindu , said, “The Hindu has had an unbroken association with Chennai and cinema, and the relationship between The Hindu and CIFF has been natural. The film festival is a great opportunity for film buffs and young students of visual communications to watch an assembly of important films.”
She also called for entries from young students for the documentary contest ‘Slice of Chennai’ organised by The Hindu in association with the CIFF she said that the deadline to enter the contest was December 13 midnight.
Several prominent members from the film and television fraternity were present. Delegate passes will be available from December 4 onwards at Woodlands Theatre and >http://www.chennaifilmfest.com/ . To register for the documentary contest, you can visit >www.thehindushutterbug.com/video . Radio Partner: Chennai Live FM