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Govt. nod for Teresa film fete

By Our Special Correspondent

KOLKATA OCT. 27. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has given the final go-ahead for the four-day Mother Teresa International Film Festival scheduled to begin here on November 1. Six of the films to be screened are directed by foreigners while four are by Indians.

In a note to the organisers, a Ministry official said that exemption from censorship certification had been granted for the scheduled films that depict the life and works of Mother Teresa who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Vatican City on October 19.

"It is for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church that an international film festival is being dedicated to a Saint or Blessed," C.M. Paul of the Catholic Association for Radio, TV and Cinema and a festival organiser told The Hindu here today. The festival is part of the concluding celebrations of the beatification after which the Archdiocese of Kolkata is expected to start preparations for the "second stage for Sainthood to the Mother," sources in the Archdiocese said.

A second posthumous "miracle" attributed to the Mother will have to be determined and sent to the Papacy before she is declared a saint. Her beatification was the "first step in that direction".

Among the films at the festival is "Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor" starring Geraldine Chaplain as Mother and scripted by Dominique Lapierre. "The Fifth Word", a cartoon film by Spanish director Cristobal Guierrero, "The Making of a Saint", a documentary by Canadian Peirre Belanger, and "Mother Teresa and Her World" by Japan's Shigeki Chiba will also be shown.

A tribunal to examine cases of "miracle cure" is expected to be re-constituted by the Archdiocese in January."Witnesses to the cure will be interviewed, medical tests will be conducted on the person claiming to be beneficiary of the Mother's special powers and only cures which defy science and nature will be examined by the tribunal," the sources added.Once the local diocese is satisfied with the veracity of a case it will be referred to the Vatican for the Papacy's endorsement.

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