The Hindu : Karnataka News : 121 films line up for Biffes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 12, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

121 films line up for Biffes

Special Correspondent

Film Festival to be held from January 3 to 10

Three Kannada films picked for Indian Panorama
Workshops on film-making to be held during the event

BANGALORE: The Bangalore International Film Festival is in the air again. This time it is called Bengalooru International Film Festival (Biffes) 2008. The organisers have already registered 121 films and they are hoping by the time the festival begins on January 3, the number entries will cross 150. The festival will come to an end on January 10.

Addressing presspersons here on Tuesday, director of Biffes Girish Kasaravalli said the film festival had been organised jointly by Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy and the Government of Karnataka.

Mr. Kasaravalli said the international retrospective section would have films of six legendary filmmakers, including Mizoguchy (Japanese – a package of five films) Julio Medem (Spanish — six films) Ashoka Hundagama (Sinhalese — three films), Emir Kosturica (Yugoslavia — three films). In the Homage section, five films each from Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), Michaelangelo Antonioni (Italy), Ousmane Sembene (Senegal), Istvan Gaal (Hungary) and Cinematographer K.K. Mahajan (India) would be screened.

The festival will also have a tribute section in which five celebrated films edited by Suresh Urs from Karnataka, in Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and Sinhalese will be screened.

Special DVD section

The special features of this festival would be an exclusive DVD section which will screen South African films including Sarafina and Cry, the beloved country, both by award winning South African director Darrell James Roodt.

For the first time Iranian films Turtles can fly by Bahman Ghobadi and Vietnamese film Buffalo Boy directed by Nyugen Vo-Minh will be screened. Oscar winning film The Lives of Others by German director Florian Donnersmarck has also been scheduled for screening.

Kannada films

Three Kannada films have been specially picked to be a part of the Indian Panorama, namely Daatu, Kada Beladingalu and Moggina Jade. There are nine other films in the Indian Panorama.

A special Laser Compact Disc exhibition having clippings of all award winning Kannada films since 1954 has been arranged.

The clippings will be shown continuously in the venue of the festival.

In addition, a biography of the well-known film director M.R. Vittal will be released during the festival. M.R. Vittal had directed landmark films in Kannada including Nanda Deepa, Hannele Chiguridaga, Miss Leelavathi, Professor Hutchuraya and Yeradu Mukha.

Workshops

On all the days during the festival, there will be workshops on film making. On all other days, workshops on different aspects of cinema will be held in which students, scholars, teachers of film journalism will take part.

Secretary of Kannada and Culture I.M. Vittalamurthy said the State Government had requested the Union Government to treat Biffes on lines with those festivals held by in Goa, Thiruvananthapuram and Kolkata.

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