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World panorama: (clockwise from top left) Scenes from ‘My Life Without Me,’ ‘Trap,’ ‘Closely Watched Trains’ and ‘The Mourning.’

Going by the response to the Festival year after year, there is every indication that it has grown and acquired an identity and reputation among festivals that focus on Third World Cinema.

“The hallmark of our Festival has from the beginning been the showcasing of Third World films from Asia, Africa and Latin America. While retaining the focus on the region, every attempt is made to prepare a spread that reaches out for the best in films from the world over,” says K.R. Mohanan, Chairman of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, which organises the Festival.

Kerala’s cine-literate audiences have always been a demanding lot and for that reason, the Academy sets high benchmarks for itself while programming for the annual event. It has all along been the policy of the Academy to popularise good cinema among the people and this has started paying returns, considering the growing awareness about quality films and the large turnout of students at the festival. The significant number of film schools and inclusion of film studies in the curriculum have made this viewing increasingly important.

The Balkan Package promises a totally new experience coming as it does from the region which the world knew as the East European Bloc. The break-up has meant dislocation and unrest, both political and ethnic. Naturally, therefore, films from this area will put the spotlight on aspects we would not have seen so far, says Mohanan. Other appealing packages include four films by Latin American women directors Tata Amoral, Isabelle Croixette, Lucretia Martel, and the Carribean Package of nine films titled ‘Colonial Legacies.’

Festivals have increasingly become venues for marketing films and opportunity for promoting Malayalam films abroad is very much on the anvil this time, says the Chairman. With NETPAC and FIPRESCI offering an award each for the Best Malayalam film screened here, the presence of sales agents from abroad augurs well for Malayalam cinema, he adds. The necessary direction will be achieved at the seminar being held this week providing a platform for producers and the agents to interact and evolve a framework.

The Suvarna Chakoram for the Director of the Best Film and the Rajata Chakoram for the Best Debut Director are the two awards that await winners from the Competition Section.

Vying for the honours in the Competition are 14 films selected from 450 entries. Films by the jury such as ‘Khuda ke liye’ by Shoaib Mansoor (Pakistan), ‘The Circle’ by Jafer Panahi (Iran), ‘Walking Julie Home’ by Agneiszka Holland (Poland) and the Retrospective of Jiri Menzel, the Czech filmmaker who is the chairman of the jury for the films in Competition are another attraction.

The chief guest of the Festival is Chilean filmmaker Miguel Litten and his film ‘The Last Moon’ will be screened.

The Audience Prize of Rs. one lakh offered to the Best Film to be selected by the audience from the Competition Films ensures the involvement of the cineaste in the process.

The Chairman has reason to be happy about the growing list of invitees, people who return year after year for the sheer experience of watching good films at IFFK, “All this is an indicator of the standards we have attained in the Festival circuit. And of course, the fervour of so many watching good films cannot but have an energising effect on our own industry,” he adds.

Inaugural film

Impact of war: Scene from ‘Buddha Collapsed out of Shame.’

Shot entirely in Afghanistan, with the overwhelming presence of the now non-existent Bamiyan Buddha, it deals with a theme of contemporary relevance.

She confessed in an interview at the Venice International Festival: “Because I was a young girl, no one took me seriously and no one hid from my camera. They just thought I was a kid making a video.” Growing up as the daughter of the Iranian filmmaker father, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and sister Sameera Makhmalbaf, this teenager learnt the ropes very early in life discontinuing formal education, only to be taught at home by her father.

“War – how it impacts the life of a girl child and the manner in which a childhood is spent playing ‘war games’ makes this an extremely important film,” says Artistic Director of the Festival Beena Paul Venugopal.

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