International Film Festival of Kerala kicked off with divine tribute to the affected by Cyclone Ockhi

Thiruvananthapuram, December 9: After IFFI on Friday, International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) kicked off; another treat for film lovers’. While Cyclone Ockhi rocked the South India, IFFK kicked off paying tributes to those affected. The 22nd edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) will continue till 15 December. 

The festival which has spawned filmmakers out of common men and women will show 190 films from 65 countries. The festival will continue to be the festival of masses, said IFFK Director Kamal.

 

The condolence meet at Nishangandhi auditorium was followed by the screening of The Insult, an Arabic film set in Lebanon by Ziad Doueiri. Actors Madhabi Banerji and Prakash Raj were present. Tagore, Kalabhavan, Kairali, Sree and Nila started screening films on Friday morning. King of Peking was shown at Tagore Theatre. Further ‘Woodpeckers’ was shown at Kalabhavan, and later screened was Dogs and Fools. Nila screened The Blessed.

 

The festival honours Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov with ‘Lifetime Acheivement Award’, whose films have received critical acclaim, even as the Soviet Union authorities had little to agree with him.

For the first time, the festival features a section dedicated to Japanese animation films, popularly referred to as anime. Children might recognize the style of the animation, as cartoon series like Pokemon uses it. However the content is usually targeted at adults. There will be 445 screenings at 14 theatres. Delegates can reserve their seats a day before through IFFK website or mobile application. There will be help desks at venues to facilitate reservations. There are 35 women film makers, whose works will be shown at the festival. In fact four of the 14 films in International competition are made by women.

In the competition section, 14 films will vie for the Golden Crow Pheasant Award. Five films by Alexander Sokurov have been included in the Retrospective on Sokurov films. The festival also pays homage to filmmakers, the late I V Sasi and K R Mohanan. Filipino filmmaker Lino Brocka’s films will be screened in Remembering the Master section.

 

Under the ‘Contemporary Film Maker in Focus’, films by African director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun and Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco will be screened. In the Retrospective section, Malayalam filmmaker K P Kumaran’s four films will be shown. The jury members of the International Film Festival started to arrive in the capital city and the first to touch down here was film editor Mary Stephen from Hongkong.