Home-grown cinema celebrated at IFFB

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BHUBANESWAR: The tenth edition of Indian Film Festival of Bhubaneswar (IFFB) at Odissi Research Centre was inaugurated at Odissi Research Centre here Thursday.

The inaugural day was marked by screening of five films for cinelovers of the capital. Besides, students’ films were also screened under the competition category.
National-award-winning film ‘Bhayanakam’ is an adaptation of two chapters from Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai’s epic novel ‘Kayar’. It’s the story of a postman who comes to the backwaters region of Kuttanad during World War II.

Six hundred and fifty people from this area had fought for the British army. The postman, played by Renji Panicker, starts bringing in telegrams declaring people dead. A former soldier himself during the First World War, he slowly becomes an omen of death.

This was followed by screening of an Assamese movie ‘Bulbul Can Sing’ directed by Rima Das. The film centers on three teenagers trying to come to terms with their sexual identities.

Two German movies The Young Karl Marx and Toni Emdmann was also shiwn under the best contemporary German movies.

Due to technical glitches, the much-anticipated Piravi directed Shaji N Karun was not screened. However, another movie by the same director ‘Vanaprastham’ was screened.

Sidharth Pradhan, Indian Revenue Services, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas; Manoranjan Panigrahi, Principal Secretary, Culture Department, Government of Odisha attended the event. Internationally acclaimed film maker from Kerala Shaji N Karun and Gopi Krishnan from the Kerala Chalachitra Academy were the guests of honour.

Secretary, Film Society Bhubaneswar, Subrat Beura said, “The focus of this year’s festival is on contemporary Indian cinema. It will have different sections – a retrospective, a selection of Master Indian Film Makers, a jury led student competition section and focus on contemporary German cinema.”

The films featuring in the festival are critically acclaimed and recipients of several honours at both national and international level for their artistic merit and socio-cultural relevance. “They engage with and depict in meaningful, thought provoking manner significant contemporary concerns such as social reality, questions of caste and gender inequality, ecology and environment, political and economic change,” said Beura.

Denizens of the city who attended the inaugural day of the festival felt quite refreshed. Apart from films, there will be literary sessions on ‘Understanding Gaze and Representation of Female Desire in Cinema’ and ‘Fascinating Fascism: Cinema and Propaganda’.

A section on Indian Masters will have a focus on the works of Ritwik Ghatak, Girish Kasaravalli and Saaji Karun. There will be a retrospective on the noted German film-maker Fatih Akin.

The concluding day of the festival January 30, Gandhiji’s assassination day, will see a reflection on his life and times with a special screening, a film filled with Gandhian values, followed by a conversation with the director.

“The festival aims to bring to its audience contemporary Indian cinema from across the country, from marginal areas, languages with significant voices in the cinematic medium,” said Bijaya Biswal executive board member of FSB . The festival is scheduled to continue till January 30.