Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Delegates all praise for IFFK

— Photos: S. Gopakumar

Take two: Actors Padmapriya and Naseeruddin Shah coming out after movie screenings in the city on Saturday.

— Photos: S. Gopakumar

Take two: Actors Padmapriya and Naseeruddin Shah coming out after movie screenings in the city on Saturday.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: International delegates and film critics who are in the city in connection with the 12th edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), which started here on Friday, have hailed the selection of films as well as the manner in which the festival is being conducted.

Peter Oppenheimer, a film critic with Stone Soup, an arts-and-culture quarterly based in California, described the eight-day event as an “undiscovered gem” comparable to some of the top film festivals in the world, including Cannes.

“Unlike Cannes, where the focus is more on celebrities and papparazi’s, here it is on the quality of films,” he said.

Mr. Oppenheimer, who is covering the festival for the sixth consecutive year, was all praise for the State’s cine-literate audience. “It is truly amazing to discover that the audience in this little-known backwater State is so knowledgeable about the films of Ingmar Bergman and Pedro Almodovar.”According to him one of the encouraging aspects of IFFK is the growing presence of youngsters in theatres. David Thomas, logistics coordinator, Melbourne International Film Festival, who is on a mission to select two outstanding films from the festival to be screened at the Melbourne film festival next year, too was quiet impressed by the way the festival has been organised. Comparing the event with the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which he had attended in Goa recently, Mr. Thomas felt that the audience of the State was “much more polite and serious.” The Festival Committee has arranged free auto commutes for delegates attending the festivalto ensure quick and comfortable transit from one venue to another.

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