Bhubaneswar: The 9th Indian Film Festival of Bhubaneswar (IFFB) organized by Film Society of Bhubaneswar (FSB) kicked off on Wednesday (Feb 14) at IDCOL Auditorium and will continue till Feb 20.The seven day festival began with the screening of Revelations, a Tamil drama directed by Vijay Jayapal. The movie revolves on the anatomy of marriage which explores themes such as complications, sexuality and guilt. Soon after the screening of the 118 minute film, a second movie was screened called ‘The Violin Player’, which showcases the struggle of a failed Bollywood session violinist who faces the startling truths about music, art, life and survival. The day was also scheduled for the screening of ‘Chidambaram’, a Malayalam movie directed by G.Aravindan and ‘Gaali Beeja’(Wind Seed), a Kannada movie directed by Babu Eshwar Prashad.
Acclaimed film-maker from Karnataka, Girish Kasaravalli known for Ghatashraddha (1977) was the Chief Guest at the festival. Kasaravalli, recipient of the Padma Shree (2011), has also been awarded with 14 National Film Awards. The father-daughter duo, Girish and Ananya Kassaravalli had an interactive session which was moderated by Amartya Bhattacharya, an independent film-maker and FSB organizing committee member.
IFFB had setup two screening halls, the main auditorium and Zona. Panel discussions were held at Zona and youth films are scheduled to be broadcasted on Friday. Some of the well known artists, dignitaries and media people will be taking part in the panel discussions on some of the pressing current topics. Discussions and debates will be held daily at the main auditorium from 5 PM to 6 PM on topics like, “Digitization has democratized cinema”, “Independent cinema in Odisha” among others.
The festival will also feature some contemporary cinema from the East and the Northeast (Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Manipuri, Khasi and Oriya); South (Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil); West (Marathi); and North (Hindi and Punjabi). Some of the award winning films included are ‘Kutrame Thandanai’ (crime is punishment) by M Manikandan, ‘Merku Thodarchi Malai’ (Western ghats) by Lenin Bharathi (both Tamil), ‘Munro Thuruthu’ (Munroe Island) by Manu (Malayalam), ‘Capital I’ by Amarthya (Oriya), ‘Masaan’ by Neeraj Ghaywan (Hindi). Some of the films made by noted Malayalam film-maker G Aravindan will also be screened at the festival as a tribute.
Amartya Bhattacharya, organizing member of IFFB said this film festival is one of its kind as it focuses exclusively on new-age regional cinema in India. “The core motive of IFFB is to celebrate and acknowledge Indian cinema. Here we are screening over 40 Indian movies across 12 regional languages”. He further added that, “Regional Indian cinema is celebrated across the world but is not as popular in our country. This is why we decided to have a National Film Festival rather than an International Film Festival”.
There will be workshops and master classes for students by noted film makers. The film festival hopes to encourage young film makers to make movies from the eastern part of the country by providing mentoring opportunities with master film makers.
The schedule for Thursday include the screening of the following regional language movies: Oru Kidayain Karunia Man(Tamil),Waterfall(English), Sometimes Stories Around Witches(Odiya), Kanchan Setta(Malayalam), The Head Hunter(Wancho) and Ottal(Malayalam).
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