The 21st edition of Dhaka International Film Festival is all set to open on January 14. DIFF 2023 is going to display 252 films from 70 countries in this edition. These are the ten recommended films that were selected in different categories of the fest.
Forbidden Womanhood
Azerbaijan, Iran | 99mins | 2022 |(Asian Film Competition)
Director- Maryam Zahirimehr
Mahi, a 12-year old girl enters puberty and gets involved in an innocent love triangle. Soon, Mahi starts to go through suffering. Her parents were ignorant to her physical and emotional changes. But based on her mother's explanation, Mahi starts to think that she is pregnant and naively confides in her friend Sara who then reveals the secret. The outraged villagers start assaulting Mahi for the dishonor she brought to the village and her family. They accuse her of having sexual relationships with two boys, an autistic boy who is utterly abused by the villagers and another lover who came from the city and seems to have assaulted Mahi sexually. Mahi finds herself under the threat of violence, punishment, isolation, ignorance, and abuse. The only compassion she receives comes from the innocent autistic boy.
Karmalink
Cambodia, USA | 102 mins | 2021 | (Asian Film Competition)
Director- Jake Wachtel
In near-future Phnom Penh, the rich and privileged wallow in nanotech, the tight-knit community of Tralop Bek is threatened with forced eviction, and 13-year-old Leng Heng has vivid dreams of his past lives. He and his friends are convinced they are meant to find a Buddhist statue to save their homes and seek out help from neighborhood scavenger, Srey Leak. Together they follow clues across town and into the past. As Leng Heng's dreams converge on the present, his very sense of identity begins to unravel. As it becomes clear that the stakes are higher than they imagined, the two friends must decide how far they are willing to go to find their treasure and the truth.
The Baseball Player
Philippines | 72mins | 2022 |(Asian Film Competition)
Director- Carlo Obispo
Amir, a Moro child soldier aspires to become a baseball player amidst an all-out war. His father was killed in an all-out war in 2000 and Amir dreams to live a different life. Training extensively with his coach, he makes it to the final tryout of a local university. Unfortunately, another all-out war against Moro rebels breaks out in 2003, and he is confronted with making a choice between pursuing his dream and fighting in the war.
The Coffin Painter
China | 96mins | 2021 | Dafei (Asian Film Competition)
A warm story of the cross-generational friendship between two strangers: Jia, an older man who has lost his son, and Seven, a middle school girl who runs from debt with her mother. As a coffin painter, the traditional Chinese craftsman who draws religious symbols on coffins, Jia witnesses people's different attitudes toward their families, alive and dead. As time passes by, the three characters with distinct personalities drift closer and bring company and warmth to each other. The film embodies people's loneliness in an indifferent world. The sincere and gloomy tone of the film drives us to feel the characters' burdens and sorrow. As Jia and Seven understand and heal each other with their kindness, their life's reverse point eventually comes…
Balit
Iran | 85 mins | 2022 | (Children Film Session)
Director- Morteza Rahimi
Baliti is a 12 year old boy, who lives in a village, has lost his father right after his birth when he was two. As his uncle insists, his mother remarried and moved to Isfahan province. Baliti is now curious and persistent in looking for his mother. All the villagers, even his grandmother hide his mother's address from him. Baliti is studying and at the same time working in a repair shop and a wheat field. He even street pedals, and with diligence he wants to help his poor grandfather with the little money he makes, and with the little amount he saves, he wants to go and find his mother to meet her. With great difficulty, he finds his mother's address and phone number, but even after several calls his mother doesn't answer, so baliti decides to travel to Isfahan and find his mother. He reaches Isfahan with great difficulty, but...
Eflâtun
Turkey | 103 mins | 2022 | (Cinema of the World)
Director- Cüneyt Karakuş
Eflatun (30), a blind woman since she was five years old, has been able to get a hold in her life with the help of her father's various shadow and sound plays. Eflatun takes up her father's profession of clock repairing. She waits for a man who she'd fall in love with. One day a man whose voice matches the voice of the man she's searching for, comes into the shop.
Magoado
Spain, Brazil | 76 mins | 2021 |(Cinema of the World)
Director- Rubén Sainz
Peio lives in hiding in Brazil as something is tormenting him. The unexpected appearance of his adolescent son who he did not know, makes him rethink his life. Quite a challenge for him, who neither knows nor wants to act as a father.
Shoebox
India | 99 mins | 2021 |(Cinema of the World)
Director- Faraz Ali
Allahabad is in the throes of change as a new era sets in with the city being renamed. Looking at development in the eyes, an ailing, Madhav Chatterjee battles to keep his decrepit single screen theatre alive. His daughter Mampu tends to her father, but finds him immersed in the past. The theatre contains within its crumbling walls, an entire childhood, and her most anchored friendship. Much like a river disappearing, the gentle flow of memories are held ransom by demands of the present. As the last few strands of her identity trickle out of the theatre, Mampu struggles to find a sense of belonging in her shape-shifting hometown.
Deep6
India | 141 mins | 2021 | (Spiritual Section)
Director- Madhuja Mukherjee
‘Deep6' delves into the world of a young woman, Mitul, and narrates her story through haunting images, and meditative long takes. Mitul strides through multiple lives, and encounters many ghosts. Mitul's ‘ex-boyfriend', Arka, returns, since he would neither let go of the relationship nor their aborted political dream. Also, her deceased grandmother is back, and watches TV all day. Moving between past, present and a possible future, on a rainy night, as Arka stands below her balcony, Mitul steps into the future. 'Deep6' is an experience of the city caught in the cabinet of time.
Akouse Me (Listen)
Greece | 108 mins | 2022 | (Women Filmmakers Section)
Director- Maria Douza
Financial upheaval forces a teenage deaf girl, Valmira (16), to leave her progressive Athens school and return to her father's struggling island where she is confronted by the danger of prejudice and intolerance, most shockingly -- her own.
