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Cinefan's largest ever fest promises the moon
Cinefan, this time under a its new avatar Osian-Cinefan, is to showcase around 90 films from 30 countries this time in its annual Delhi festival.
Cinefan is back again in Delhi. A time when the movie fan gets a respite from the average escapist fare on offer in mainline cinema. A time when he, or she, gets to savour some 'good' films, both national and international.
Cinefan has in the past brought some of the best films ever made to audiences in the city. And with its largest ever offering for this year's edition, Cinefan promises to entertain and provoke its fans yet again.
The festival, which concentrates only on Asian Cinema, is in its sixth edition this year. It has traveled a long way from when it started with just 15 films, this year there are 90 films on offer from 30 countries, though not all are Asian. It will be on in four venues in the city, Siri Fort, India Habitat Centre, India Intenational Centre and the French Cultural Centre from July 16 to 25.
The festival continues its legacy of paying tribute to some of the greatest names of Asian cinema, and this year the choices are the legendary Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makmalbaf and the equally well known Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, besides our very own Guru Dutt.
Besides these, regular sections like Asian Frescoes, India Bazaar, East-West Encounter, The Hubert Bals Fund and of course the Competition continue. This year there are 14 films competing for the awards, which includes two Indian films, Black Friday by Anurag Kashyap and Danav by Makarand Deshpande.
A special section, Arabesque, concentrates on Arab cinema this year. There about a dozen film from the Arabic world, which includes films from Egypt, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia.
Special screenings include Rakesh Sharma's Final Solution, the Swiss-Iraqi film, Forget Baghdad directed by Samir and the Cambodian film, S-21 Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, directed by Rithy Panh.
The opening film of the festival is the German film Gegen Die Wand (Head On), directed by Faith Akin while the closing film is Makmalbaf's Once Upon a Time, Cinema.
An innovation this year is the Talent Campus India, on the lines of a similar initiative at the Berlin International Film Festival. Fifty young talents from around the country have been invited for a four-day workshop to interact with renowned filmmakers. This is being organized in collaboration with Delhi's Max Mueller Bhavan.
In collaboration with The European Coordination of Film Festivals, a India-Europe Round Table Conference will be held on July 24 which will see the participation of many a leading filmmaker and critic.
Shabana Azmi will be the President of this year's jury for the festival. Other members of the jury are Amable Tikoy Aguiluz VI (Philippines), Aparna Sen (India), Kim Dong Ho (Korea), Mohsen Makmalbaf (Iran), Olivier Pere (France) and Oussama Mohammad (Syria).
The NETPAC Jury consists of Philip Cheah (Singapore), Ashley Ratnavibhushana (Sri Lanka) and Zhu Wen (China).
An exhibition titled, Indian Cinematic Landmarks Exhibition from Osian's Archive for Art and Cinema will also be on at the IHC during the course of the festival.
A cine feast seems to be definitely in store for cinefans!
