Firaaq -Nandita Das' debut in IFFK competition

Nandita Das is known to film enthusiasts for her performances in films like Fire, Earth, Bawander,Nalu Pennungal(four women ) and many other . She had in her credit over 30 feature films, in different languages, most of them have been shown in a number of international film festivals and have won her critical acclaim. She was a member of the jury at the Cannes IFF in 2005 and at the Karlovy Vary IFF in 2007. Firaaq is her directorial debut .The story is set over a 24-hour period, one month after the carnage that took place in Gujarat, India in 2002. This sectarian violence killed more than 3000 Muslims, hundreds of thousands were made homeless and the number of women raped is still unknown. The filmtraces the emotional journeys of ordinary people– somewhowere victims, some perpetrators and some who chose to watch silently. A middle class housewife closes the door on a victimand struggles to overcome her guilt. A bunch of youngmen having suffered the violence, seek revenge to fight their helplessness and anger. A boy desperately searches for hismissing father, having lost the rest of his family in the riots. A saintly musician clings on to his idealism, despite all the violence in the city, until an incident shakes his faith.