The silver jubilee edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) will get off to a start on Wednesday at the Nishagandhi auditorium here.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate the festival at 6 p.m. at a function to be presided over by Minister for Cultural Affairs A.K Balan.
Assembly Speaker P. Sreeramakrishnan will be the chief guest of the event. French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard is to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award for this year. Filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan will be accepting the award on Godard’s behalf at the inaugural function.
Thiruvananthapuram Corporation Mayor Arya Rajendran will release a book on Jean-Luc Godard by handing a copy over to D. Suresh Kumar, president, Thiruvananthapuram district panchayat. V.K. Prasanth, MLA, will release the festival handbook by handing it over to filmmaker T.K. Rajeev Kumar.
Rani George, Secretary, Department of Cultural Affairs, Kamal, Kerala State Chalachitra Academy chairman, festival director Beena Paul, and C. Ajoy, secretary, will also participate. The inaugural function will be followed by the screening of the opening film Quo Vadis, Aida?
A total of 2,500 passes have been issued in the Thiruvananthapuram region. As many as 2,164 seats have been arranged across five theatres in the city. Apart from the screening of films, the IFFK will also host online forums and events, and will have the presence of prominent film personalities.
