Festival reels from tomorrow

Moving frames have always been a fascinating experience for everyone and when it comes to film festivals, the fascination amplifies. The 17^th International Film Festival of Kerala is all set to deliver its audience with the maxim of this experience. Trademarked as one of the best film festivals around the globe that redesigned the concept about artistic cinema among the common audience, IFFK, will mark the reeling of its 17^th edition tomorrow.

Hon’ble Chief Minister of Kerala Oomen Chandy will lit the light of the colorful inaugural ceremony at Nishagandhi open-air auditorium at 6 pm tomorrow. Actor Mohanlal will be the Chief Guest. Ganesh Kumar, Minister for Cinema, Sports and Forest will preside. Shasi Tharoor, Central Minister of State for Human Resources Development, V S Sivakumar, Minister for Health and Devaswom and K Chandrika, Mayor of Thiruvananthapuram will be among the ones who participate in the function. Festival Jury Chairman Paul Cox and other jury members will also be on the dais.

Film lovers will be entertained with a sumptuous feast of 198 films from 51 nations across the world. Films included in the festival like ‘Amour’, ’18 Days’, ‘The Ring’, ‘Muriel’, ‘Stray Dog’ etc have been the highlights of various other films festivals. The competition section includes 14 films from Asia, Latin America and Africa, apart from four Indian films. Providing greater screen space for women filmmakers 25 most acclaimed films of 24 female directors are included. Retrospective category comprises masterpiece films of six cinema maestros including Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock and Alain Resnais. In accordance with the birth centenary of versatile actor Sathyan, a special exhibition on his illustrative career and screening of six remarkable films make marks to the retro.

Suspense Master Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s silent movie ‘The Ring’ will be the inaugural film. Astonishingly, the inaugural film will be screened with live background score! This is the same technique used in 1920s for screening of silent movies. A special team of seven musicians led by noted jazz master Soweto Kinch from Britain have arrived in the state capital exclusively for this purpose. The live orchestration will be a visual treat for the new generation who had never experienced this historical episode of film screening. Hitchcock is still remembered as the most influential British film director who gave a new dimension to the suspense thriller genre. The Ring, released in 1927, is one of the silent films of the director, which was restored by the British Film Institute as part their project of restoration of lost films. For reliving the historical ambience of  screening The Ring, Nishagandhi, has been re-molded into a theatre like that  of 1920s. The screening will start at 7pm, right after the inaugural ceremony.          

The film festival concluding on next Friday will provide us with an astonishing, incomparable and memorable visual extravagance. The 17th IFFK, tailored with more focus on cinema than glamorizing, glorifying and exaggerating itself, sure to be a better slice of film experience. By all means, this edition of the Fest is fashioned into a tour of global cinema now and past. The packages and retro are indeed fascinating for thousands of cineastes. Rather theIFFK is considered to be a cinema workshop for the serious film-mates and movie students.