Friday, January 29, 2021
MeeraSahib Online: 25th IFFK 2021 -Opening Film Jasmila Zbanic’s “Qu...
25th IFFK 2021 -Opening Film Jasmila Zbanic’s “Quo Vadis, Aida?
Jasmila Zbanic’s “Quo Vadis, Aida?,” the Bosnia and Herzegovina entry in the Academy Awards’ international feature category, will open the 25th edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK). Quo Vadis, Aida?, deals with one of the war’s most heinous atrocities: the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, during which Bosnian Serb forces under the command of Ratko Mladić executed more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys – a genocide the United Nations forces deployed to protect the inhabitants of the supposedly “safe area” of Srebrenica did almost nothing to prevent. By the time of Srebrenica, Žbanić had been living under siege in Sarajevo for almost three years; she might have been preoccupied only with her own problems. But what she heard in the weeks and months that followed stayed with her. “Here was another shock,” she says. “This was a UN-protected area. We felt that if the aggression could not be stopped by the UN, then there were no human rights we could believe in – and from that moment, I was obsessed. I wanted to know everything about it. It was a trauma for all Bosnians. When we learned how many people had died, and how they had died, and how they were buried. When we learned that the graves had been moved [in an effort to cover up the massacre].”Jasmila Zbanic was born on December 19, 1974 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia. She is a director and writer, known for Quo vadis, Aida? ( 2020), Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams (2006) and Na putu (2010).
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Thursday, January 28, 2021
25th IFFK 2021 -Lifetime Achievement Award - to be conferred on Jean Luc Godard, the master craftsman, the new wave auteur,of world cinema .
" To me, style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body. Both go together, they can’t be separated ".
- Jean-Luc Godard
Lifetime Achievement Award of the Silver jubilee edition of the IFFK -25th International Film Festival of Kerala- will be presented to the living legend of world cinema, Jean Luc Godard(ഴാങ് ഗൊദാർദ്) . He is 91 and likely to be presented the honor in absentia.
"There was before Breathless, and there was after Breathless. Jean-Luc Godard burst onto the film scene in 1960 with this jazzy, free-form, and sexy homage to the American film genres that inspired him as a writer for Cahiers du cinéma. With its lack of polish, surplus of attitude, anything-goes crime narrative, and effervescent young stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, Breathless helped launch the French New Wave and ensured that cinema would never be the same." (criterion.com wrote about Breathless, his 1960 film)
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Sunday, January 24, 2021
51st International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2021- Into the Darkness by Anders Refn (Denmark) won the Golden Peacock Award.
51st International Film Festival of India (IFFI), happened in spite of the pandemic and concluded today with the declaration of coveted peacock awards. Into The Darkness directed by Anders Refn (Denmark) won the golden peacock award and prize money of 50 lakhs. Best director award silver peacock goes to KO Chen-Nien (Taiwan) for his film The Silent Forest. Biswajit Chatterji received the Indian personality of the year award. Bhagat Singh Koshiyari the Governor of Goa, Dr.Pramod Sawant , the Chief Minister , Babul Supriyo,Minister and guest of honour Zeenat Aman participated in the closing ceremony. Screening of Wife of a Spy(Japan), was the closing film of the fest.
" The epic World War II film Into the Darkness (De forbandede år,) which portrays the story of a Danish electronics factory owner who is forced to produce for the occupying Nazi forces, has won the coveted Golden Peacock Award at the just-concluded 51st edition of the International Film Festival of India. Directed by Anders Refn, the 152-minute Danish film gives a gripping dive into the complex emotional turmoil which the people of Denmark had to undergo, during the Nazi occupation of the country. The film does this evocatively and powerfully, through the mental conflicts to which the protagonist Karlskov is subjected; on the one hand, he is being forced by the invaders to continue production for the German market, to protect his family; on the other hand, the moral indefensibility of this choice results also in painful breaks within his family.
The Silver Peacock for Best Director carries a certificate and cash award of 15 lakh rupees (Rs. 1.5 million).
Notably, the Silver Peacock for Best Actor – Male too has been awarded to 17-year-old Tzu-Chuan Liu, who through his role as the protagonist Chang Cheng in The Silent Forest, has been able to beautifully and powerfully bring out the world of the differently-abled boy. Liu is known also for his roles in 76 Horror Bookstore (2020) and On Children (2018). The Award carries a certificate and cash award of 10 lakh rupees (Rs. 1 million).
The Silver Peacock for Best Actor – Female has been awarded to Polish actor Zofia Stafiej, for her role in Piotr Domalewski’s I Never Cry / Jak najdalej stad, a film that explores the journey of self-discovery of a daughter who has to traverse the maze of bureaucracy in a foreign country to bring back the body of her dead father. Stafiej receives a certificate and cash award of 10 lakh rupees for the award. Stafiej is known also for 25 lat niewinnosci. Sprawa Tomka Komendy (2020) and Marcel (2019).
The IFFI 51 Special Jury Award for a film goes to Bulgarian Director Kamin Kalev for his 2020 film February, which tells the life story of a man at three different ages of eight, eighteen, and eighty-two. The film presents a view of life as being a mysterious continuity of different incarnations/avatars, using poetic metaphors that make the audience reflect as to whether human beings are just dots in a vast open landscape beneath the wide sky. Kalev is a writer as well, and is known for Eastern Plays (2009) and Face Down (2015).
Kalev receives a Silver Peacock, a certificate, and cash award of 15 lakh rupees (Rs. 1.5 million).
The IFFI 51 Special Mention Award has been presented to Indian director Kripal Kalita for his Assamese film Bridge, which reflects life amidst hardships caused by annual floods in rural Assam. The film tells the story of the annual phenomenon in the state, wherein the mighty Brahmaputra and its tributaries flood many villages and ruin cultivation. Kalita receives a certificate for the Award.
The Award for Best Debut Director has been presented to Brazilian Director Cássio Pereira dos Santos, for his 2020 Portuguese film Valentina, an eponymous film which tells the story of a 17-year-old transgender Brazilian girl, whose sole aim is to lead a normal life with her mother.
Director Santos studied cinema at the University of Brasília, where he directed fiction and documentary projects. His works have been selected at several international film festivals. He has received more than 50 awards.
ICFT UNESCO Gandhi Award
The prestigious ICFT UNESCO Gandhi Award, given to a film that best reflects Mahatma Gandhi's ideals of peace, tolerance, and non-violence, has been awarded to Ameen Nayfeh’s 2020 Arabic film 200 Meters, which tells the moving story of a Palestinian father living in the Occupied Territories of the Middle East, who is trapped on the other side of the separation wall and desperately tries to reach the hospital for his son. The Award consists of a certificate and a medal and is given as part of IFFI’s collaboration with the International Council for Film, Television and Audiovisual Communication (ICFT) Paris.
The Awards have been decided by the IFFI 51 International Jury comprising eminent filmmakers from across the world, with Argentine Director Pablo Cesar as Chairman. Prasanna Vithanage (Sri Lanka), Abu Bakr Shawky (Austria), Priyadarshan (India) and Rubaiyat Hossain (Bangladesh) were the other members of the Jury.
In a video message, Jury Chairman Pablo Cesar thanked the festival for the opportunity given to the Jury to evaluate the films in the International Competition category. “We are very happy with the wide and varied themes showcased in the films selected for the festival, especially those that make us reflect on individual freedoms, rights of children and all the people of this world, empowerment of women and memories of things that some people have done which we are sure we never want to happen again. Thank you IFFI for the selection of films which are rich in content and aesthetic search.”( Courtesy:P.I.B release)..
15 Films contested for Golden Peacock and other Peacock Awards.
- The Domain by Tiago Guedes (Portugal)
- Into The Darkness by Anders Refn (Denmark)
- February by Kamen Kalev (Bulgaria, France)
- My Best Part by Nicolas Maury (France)
- I Never Cry by Piotr Domalewski (Poland, Ireland)
- La Veronica by Leonardo Medel (Chile)
- Light For The Youth by Shin Su-won (South Korea)
- Red Moon Tide by Lois Patiño (Spain)
- Dream About Sohrab by Ali Ghavitan (Iran)
- The Dogs Didn’t Sleep Last Night by RaminRasouli (Afghanistan, Iran)
- The Silent Forest by KO Chen-Nien (Taiwan)
- The Forgotten by Daria Onyshchenko (Ukraine, Switzerland)
- Bridge by Kripal Kalita (India)
- A Dog And His Man by Siddharth Tripathy (India)
- Thaen by Ganesh Vinayakan (India)
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Friday, January 22, 2021
25th International Film Festival of Kerala (25th IFFK 2021) -Films selected in Festival Kaleidoscope
KALEIDOSCOPE
Sl. No. | Title | Director | Language |
1 | 1956, Central Travancore / 1956, Madhyathiruvithamkoor | Don Palathara | Malayalam |
2 | Biriyaani | Sajin Baabu | Malayalam |
3 | Vasanthi | Shinos Rahman, Sajas Rahman | Malayalam |
4 | Debris of Desire / Mayar Jonjal | Indranil Roy Chowdhury | Bengali |
5 | Can Neither Be here Nor Journey Beyond / Illiralaare Allige Hogalaare | Girish Kasaravalli | Kannada |
6 | Up Up & Up | Govind Nihalani | English |
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25th International Film Festival of Kerala (25th IFFK 2021) -Films selected in Malayalalam Cinema Today
MALAYALAM CINEMA TODAY
Sl. No. | Title | Director |
1 | Ascent of an Untouchable / Gramavrikshathile Kuyil | KP Kumaran |
2 | C U Soon | Mahesh Narayanan |
3 | Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam | Don Palathara |
4 | Love | Khalid Rahman |
5 | Musical Chair | Vipin Atley |
6 | Attention Please | Jithin Issac Thomas |
7 | Vaanku | Kavya Prakash |
8 | Thinkalazhcha Nishchayam | Senna Hegde |
9 | Papam Cheyyathavar Kalleriyatte | Shambhu Purushothaman |
10 | Android Kunjappan Version 5.25 | Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval |
11 | A’hr / Kayattam |
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25th International Film Festival of Kerala (25th IFFK 2021) -Films selected in Indian Cinema Today
INDIAN CINEMA NOW
1 | Milestone / Meel Patthar | Ivan Ayr | Hindi, Punjabi, Kashmiri |
2 | Nasir | Arun Karthick | Tamil |
3 | Horse Tail / Kuthiraivaal | Manoj Jahson, Shyam Sunder | Tamil |
4 | The Disciple | Chaitanya Tamhane | Marathi, English, Hindi, Bengali |
5 | Pig / Seththumaan | Thamizh | Tamil |
6 | Where is Pinki? / Pinki Elli? | Prithvi Konanur | Kannada |
7 | The Shepherdess and The Seven Songs / Laila Aur Satt Geet | Pushpendra Singh | Hindi |
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