Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated the 24th edition of International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) on Friday. The seven-day festival is considered to be one of the prominent film festivals organized in India.
The opening ceremony, which started at 6pm, was held at Nishagandhi Auditorium in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala. Minister for Co-operation, Tourism and Devaswom Kadakampally Surendran was the Chief Guest while veteran actor Sarada was the special guest of honour at the opening ceremony. Minister for Cultural Affairs AK Balan presided over the ceremony.
Turkish film-maker Serhat Karaaslan’s Passed By Censor was the opening film for the festival.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan spoke about the legacy of IFFK, which over the past 24 years has made its political stance clear by promoting African, Asian and Latin American sentiments through films. The Minister termed this stance as a 'cultural defensive' against autocratic and fascist trends.
Actor Sarada said in her speech that Kerala has always supported good films, and IFFK reflected the originality of Malayalam films and Kerala's culture. IFFK is screening seven most popular films of Sarada, who is a two-time national award-winning actor. The films will be screened in the retrospective category, and it was inaugurated by film-maker Adoor Gopalkrishnan at the Sree theatre yesterday at 6:15pm.
Sarada gave an emotional speech about how lucky she is to have worked with some of the greatest film-makers in India including Adoor.
The films of the festival are being screend at Nila, Sree, Kairali, and Kalabhavan theatres. Stephane Batut's Burning Ghost, Amjad Abu Alala's You Will Die At 20, Ena Sendarejivic's Take Me Somewhere Nice, and Italian director Armando Capó's August were the major films screened on the first day.
43 films were screened in the World Cinema category on Saturday, the day two of the festival.
Two foreign films - Jorge Gurvich's Back to Maracana and Karolis Kaupinis's Nova Lituania - had their Asian premiere yesterday. Whereas Before Oblivion by Iria Gomez Concheiro and Unintended by Anja Marman had their international premieres.
Ashvin Kumar's No Father in Kashmir, Pema Tsedan's Baloon, Gu Xiaogang's Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, Goran Paskaljevic's Despite the Fog, and Adilkhan Yerzhanov's A Dark Dark Man were other notable names among the films screened yesterday.
Raymund Ribay Gutierrez's Verdict - which won the Special Jury award at the Venice Film Festival of 2019 - and Mohanad Hayal's Haifa Street - Best Arabic film winner at Busan International Film Festival- were some of the main attractions of yesterday.
