The Hindu : Kerala / Thrissur News : 50 films for Thrissur international film festival

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Monday, Jul 19, 2004

Kerala

Kerala - Thrissur

50 films for Thrissur international film festival

By Our Staff Reporter

THRISSUR, JULY 18. About 50 films from 20 countries will be screened during the first international film festival to be held in Thrissur from August 19 to 26.

Targeted at ordinary film lovers, students and critics, the film festival will have 15 sections and the screenings will be held at the Sapna and Jose theatres, Sahithya Akademi Hall and Children's Park, the organisers told a press conference here on Saturday.

The films selected for the festival portray the finer dimensions of history as well as of individual and social lives. The festival has been conceived as a broad passage that leads into the depths and expanses of human life. Some of the best films from Malayalam and other Indian languages are also included in the festival, they said.

The festival will have different packages like `Masters and Classics', `Indian Classics', `Malayalam Cinema - 75 years', `Indian Realistic Cinema - 50 years', `Contemporary Asian Cinema', `Contemporary French Cinema', `Russian Focus', `Homage Section', `Focus Women', `Cinema and Literature', `Actors and Cinema', `Old Age', `Disease and Society', `Ozu Retrospective', Mrinal Sen Retrospective', `Joris Ivans Retrospective', `Sports and Politics', and `Four Silent Movies'.

Documentary classics and animation films also will be screened during the eight-day-long festival. The `London Package', which includes five films on human rights issues, is one of the unique packages at the festival.

The festival has also given much importance to the environmental issues.

The festival, to be inaugurated by Mrinal Sen, will have seminars, `face-to-face' programmes with eminent directors and exhibitions on film-related issues.

Luis Bunuel's `Virdiana', Goddard's `Weekend' and Alfred Hitchcock's `Birds' are some of the films included in the `Masters and Classics section while `Subarnarekha' of Ritwik Ghatak, `Elippathayam' of Adoor Gopalakrishnan and `Dr. Ambedkar' of Jabbar Patel are among the films included in the `Indian Classics' section.

The list of films included in the `Indian Realistic Cinema - 50 years' are `Pather Panchali' (Satyajit Ray), `Neelakkuyil' (P. Bhaskaran and Ramu Kariat) and `Newspaper Boy' (P. Ramadas).

`Rhapsody in August' of Akira Kurosawa and `Wild Strawberries' of Ingmar Bergman are included in the `Old Age' section while `Five by Four' of Roopa Swaminathan and `Anahat' of Amol Palekar will be screened in the `Focus Women' section.

The Contemporary Asian Cinema will feature five films from Iran, Korea, China, Hong Kong and Uzbekistan. The silent films from the early age of world cinema include the Lumiere Programme and Marthanda Varma.

The Homage section features tributes to Surayya, B.V. Karanth, Vasudeva Rao and Marlon Brando, who passed away recently, as well as to the legendary singing hero, the late Saigal.

The films to be screened in this section are `Devadas' (Saigal), Dillagi (Surayya), `Chomanaduti' (B. V. Karanth and Vasudeva Rao) and `On the Water Front' (Marlon Brando).

I. Shanmughadas, M.C. Rajanarayanan, Aravindan Vallachira, Benny Benedict, V.G. Thampi and P. N. Gopikrishnan were among those who addressed the press conference.

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