17th International Film Festival of Kerala to screen 197 Films

The 17th edition of the prestigious and reputed international film of Kerala will be a delightful treat for the film lovers and admirers. This time as many as 197films will be screened under 15 different categories.

Australian Indigenous Films, Top-angle Cinema, Theater Film, Hitchcock silent Films and Films on adolescences are the newly added categories to this edition. This time, the race for the coveted “Suvarna Chakoram” (Golden Crow Pheasent) there will be among 14 films from Asia, Africa and Latin American nations. The Indian representation in this category are Filimistaan directed by Nitin  Kakkar, ID by Kamal, TV Chandran’s Inheritors of the Earth and Shutter by Joy Mathew.

In the world cinema section 78 films of popular directors will be screened. Among others one of the main attractions of this category is ’18 Days’ which is a joint venture of 9 directors which narrates the Egyptian Peoples’ Revolution lasted for 18 days. The other prominent films are of Volker Swan Draught, Kenlock, Bernardo Bertolucci, Aki Kaurismaki, Abbas Kiarostami, Apichatong, Raoul Ruiz, Walter Salles, Fatih Akin, Olivier Assayas, Makhmalbaf, Lars Von Trier, Nadeem Labaik, Taviani Brothers. Controversial film Mid-night Children by Deepa Mehta will be a film to watch,which is the adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s book with the same name. Two films ofcelebrated director Kim Ki Duk are also included in this category.

The films which found no place in the competition section of this fest and won acclaims in the other festivals will be shown under the title Top Angle Indian Cinema.They are namely, Girish Kasaravalli’s Koormavatara, Raghu Jeganathan’s 500&5  ,Arvind Iyer’s Drapchi,Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni’s  Temple (Deol) , Ajita Suchitra Veera’s The Ballad of Rustom and Gajendra Ahire’s Touring Talkies are included in this category.

The eight films which are either directed by Australian Indigenous directors or are portrayed on the life of Australian Indigenous people are compiled and presented under the Australian Indigenous Films category. These films elaboratethe relationship between Australia and its indigenous people.

Vietnam will be the Country in Focus in this edition. This category will be having four Vietnam films, which are selected in such an order that the audience will get to know more about the origin, growth and modernization of the Vietnam film industry, which had its inception in 1920s.

The five French filmson Adolescence addressing the issues and problems faced by them are special category in this fest.

Many plays of well-known writers have been made into  films.Some of these films are included in the Theater Films category. Hamlet directed by Kenneth Branagh, A Street Car Named Desire by Elia Kazan, Equss by Sidney Lumet and Romeo &Juliet by Franco Zeffirelli. While the two Malayalam films to be screened in this section are Aravindan’s Kanchana Sita and Jayaraaj’s Kaliyattam.

The Retrospective Category includes films of Akira Kurasawa, Paul Cox, S. Pierre Yameogo, Alain Resnais, Helena Ignez, Alfred Hitchcock and sharada. In total, there will 33 films to be screened.

In accordance with the birth centenary of the legendary actor Sathyan, IFFK will feature seven of his most memorable films.

In the Jury Section, five films of Paul Cox are included.Hitchcock’s Silent films will make the audience enjoy the beauty of silent films.

This time in Indian Cinema Now category, a total of seven films, are to be screened. They are The Crowning Wish by Rituparno Ghosh, Cosmic Sex by Amitabh Chakraborty, The Script jointly directed by Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukhtankar, Wave of Silence by Jahnu Barua, The Crier by M Adehyaprata Rajan, Tears of Nandigram directed by Sarfaraz Alam and Kushik Ganguly’s Sound.

In the category Malayalam Cinema Today there will be seven films which have been well received by audience and gained critical acclamation. This includes Indian Rupee directed by Ranjith, A Document of Separation by Madhupal, In Recent Times by Arun Kumar Aravind, Manjo Kana’s Chayilliam, Color of Sky directed by Dr. Biju, K. Gopinathan’s Ithramathram and Friday directed by Lijin Jose.

There will be films of Thilakan, Appachan, T. Damodaran, Jose Prakash, Padmakumar, Ashok Mehta and Kris Marker, inthe homage section.

The fest will commence on 7^th of December and  last up to 14^th December 2012.