22 Nov, 2008, Goa (India): The 39th International Film festival opened today evening in Goa with the screening of the period Chinese film, Warlords, directed by renowned HongKong film-maker Peter Chan. The festival was inaugurated by veteran actress Rekha and upcoming Bollywood Amrita Rao. Renowned Indian actor Kamal Hassan is to be Chief Guest at the closing ceremony on 2 December at which the awards will also be presented. The Mid Festival film chosen to be screened is Ang Lee’s Lust Caution. Song of Sparrows’ by the prominent Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi will be the closing film for the film festival.

Apart from these films over 225 films from more than 30 countries will be screened at the festival in several sections. The competition section will have 15 films from all over the world. These include My Mother’s Tears (Argentina/Germany), Rupantor (Transformation) (Bangladesh), The Shaft (China), Kanachivaram and Mahasatta (India), The Song of Sparrows (Iran), The Red Spot (Japan/Germany), Tulpan (Kazakhstan), Pensil (Malaysia), Ploning (Philippines) , Akasa Kusum (Sri Lanka), and The Coffin (Thailand).

While the main attraction will be the 56 films in the Cinema of the World section, another interesting section is ‘Film India Worldwide.’ This will showcase films made by Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in collaboration with foreign filmmakers or films that are made on Indian themes. The entries in this segment are Tandoori Love (Switzerland), Death Without Consent (USA), Barah Aana and Chaurasta-Cross Roads of Love (India). Other films of eminent filmmakers Aki Kaurismaki (Finland), John Landis (USA) and Wong Kar Wai (Hong Kong) too will be screened in the ‘Foreign Retrospectives’ section.

Films from Russia, Switzerland and Iran would be in the ‘Country Focus’ section wherein best of the films would be screened during the ten day film festival.

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14th Kolkata Film Festival

November 8, 2008, Kolkata: Cine Central, one of the largest film societies in India, will screen 70 films from 30 countries as part of the 14th Kolkata Film Festival to be held in Kolkata from 10-17 November 2008.
“Besides some remarkable Indian films, we will be showcasing some of the best films from Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Iran, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Pakistan, Sweden, South Korea, Slovakia and Uruguay,” general secretary of Cine Central, Sadhan Chakraborty told reporters in Kolkata on Thursday.

A package of contemporary films to focus on Turkish, Norwegian and Dutch Cinema will also be presented here. One of the biggest crowd pullers for the festival will be a digitally restored version of ‘Sikkim,’ Satyajit Ray’s 1971 banned documentary which everyone has heard about but not been able to see till date. Besides, a package of seven films would be screened under the section ‘Ray’s Favourite Hollywoods,’ giving cinephiles a glimpse of the works that inspired the master.

The ‘Great Masters’ section of the film festival will showcase five films by Ernst Lubitsch of Germany, eight by Spanish director Carlos Saura and four by Theo Angelopoulos of Greece. Famous German film-maker Rainer Werner Fassbinder will feature in the ‘Homage’ section with 11 films, while Eric Rohmer of France, Alain Tanner of Switzerland and Werner Herzog of Germany would figure in the ‘Celluloid Diamonds’ section with six, nine and ten films respectively.

Israel’s Doron Eran (six films) and Germany’s Tom Tykwer will feature in the ‘Celluloid Pearls’ section with six films each, while six films by Korean director Kim Ki Duk will be shown in the ‘Discovery’ section. A package of four films from Iran under the ‘Iranian Independents’ section is going to be included as a part of the famous film festival too.

The festival will open with ‘Red Like the Sky,’ a 95-minute film by Italian film-maker Christiano Bortone.

Cine Central was formed in September 1965 and organised India’s first independent international film festival in 1986, under the name of Calcutta International Film Festival. This film fest was renamed as International Forum of New Cinema in 1998 and is held every year as part of the Kolkata Film Festival.

Further details about the festival film schedule can be found here at the Kolkata Film Festival Website.

7th Third Eye Asian Film Festival

Fun Cinemas presents the 7th Third Eye Asian Film Festival organised by the Asian Film Foundation in Mumbai this year, from 17 to 23 October. The seven-day festival will give film freaks a chance to see movies from Korea, China, Iran, India, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka and Japan. Movies by renowned directors like Shyam Benegal, Youssef Shahine, Keisuke Kinoshita, Anjan Das, Dan Wolman and Chan-sang Lim will be screened in the festival. The festival will felicitate the well known Korean filmmaker Park Kwang Su with the Asian Culture Award, and Founder-director of National Film Archieve of India will be felicitated with the Satyajit Ray Memorial Award. 80 films from 20 countries will be screened with each day screening 5 films from morning to evening.

Venues are Chavan Theater, Plaza Cinema and Fun Republic - Mumbai.

Bachchan in French director Luc Jacquet’s film

Legendary Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan is presently in negotiations with French director Luc Jacquet, to sign on an English movie that is to be shot in India and France.

Jaquet had written and directed March of the Penguins, which won the Oscar for best documentary feature in 2005. Currently in Paris, here’s what Bachchan had to say about the on going talks in his blog, “From the looks of it there may be consent on the French project. It will be in English, produced and directed by French personnel, those who made March of the Penguin.”

The film is to be shot in India and France, and work is set to start by next year end. Bachchan is also considering another project with Hollywood writer Paul Schrader, the writer behind many popular films like Marin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ and Raging Bull, “I shall need to see the script before I consider any further” said Bachchan.

Luc Jacquet’s recently released film The Fox and the Child is a fiction feature for children, revolving around a friendship in between an erm, a fox and a child. The voice over for English language audiences has been dubbed and replaced by the voice of Kate Winslet.

Director Series - Film Screenings in Bangalore

Bangalore is raining films. First it was the German Film Week. Now it is larger and longer. Nani Cinematheque, along with Palador Films, has planned an eight month long feast of world cinema for the film buffs of the city. The eight months will showcase 5 films each of great directors from across the world and will be screened at the Nani CInematheque theatre on Sona towers, Millers Road weekend of the first week every month.

The inaugural month has started with a Wong Kar Wai Film Fest with screenings of Fallen Angels (1995) on Friday (Aug 1), Happy Together (1997) and Away With Words (1999) on Saturday (Aug 2) and In The Mood For Love (2000) and Chungking Express (1994) (Aug 3) on Sunday. The group has also partnered with Suchitra Film Society which will be re-screening the same films during the same weekend at their venue at Banashankari for viewers far from Millers Road.

The inaugural session is open for all cinema lovers with a registration of 1000 rupees for the eight months at the Nani Cinematheque. An added perk, apart from the 40 films, the members of Nani Cinematheque will be at added advantage for the upcoming for the 7-film long Bergman retrospective at INOX cinemas later this month as Palador has already partnered with Nani cinematheque. That is not all, they will be interacting with some fine filmmakers from the country and discussing the films screened. Plans of Filmmaking workshops are also on the anvil.

For details, contact Mr. Anand at +919845055034