200 movies at Guwahati international film fest

Two hundred movies from across the world will be screened at Guwahati.

Guwahati: Two hundred movies from across the world will be screened during the first Guwahati International Short Film Festival next month during which there will be a special screening of the highly-acclaimed Malayalam anthology `Kerala Cafe`. The two-day festival from May 2 will see films from countries like Spain, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, the US and Australia as well as all over India screened under

sections World Kaleidoscope, Indian Kaleidoscope and the competitive section, North-East Shorts. The World Kaleidoscope section will see screening of award winning short films from Cannes International Festival. Spanish film `Porque Hay Cosas Que Nunca Se Olvidan` (Because There Are Things We Never forget) by award winning director Lucas Figueroa will open the festival. A major highlight of the festival will be the special screening of `Kerala Cafe`, directed by a team of 10 filmmakers - Lal Jose, Shaji Kailas, Anwar Rasheed, Shyamaprasad, B Unnikrishnan, Revathy, Anjali Menon, M Padmakumar, Shankar Ramakrishnan and Uday Ananthan. For the first time in the history of Malayalam cinema, a film was conceived by a team of 10 directors, 10 cinematographers, musicians, editors, art directors and almost all the top actors. The cast includes Mammootty, Suresh Gopi, Dileep, Jayasurya, Prithviraj, Sreenivasan, Siddique, Sreenath, Rahman, Thilakan, Jagathy Sreekumar, Salim Kumar, Anoop Menon, Navya Nair, Shwetha Menon, Jyothirmayi, Rima Kallingal, Nithya Menon and Dhanya Mary Varghese. The festival is an initiative by Creovaent Productions in association with Shamiana, the acclaimed short film club from Mumbai. "The GISFF is an important initiative to create a platform to discuss, disseminate and in future market short fiction films, a genre that is finding more and more popularity all over the world in recent times," says GISFF director and National Award-winning film critic Utpal Borpujari. The jury will be headed by Shyamaprasad, who has also given Malayalam box office hits like `Agnisakshi`, `Ore Kadal` and `Elektra`. The other jury members are actor Adil Hussain (of Ang Lee`s `Life of Pi` and Sridhar Raghavan`s `Agent Vinod` fame), Nila Madhab Panda (whose debut feature film `I Am Kalam` has won 11 international awards till now) and Manipuri filmmaker Haobam Paban Kumar (whose documentaries `AFSPA` and `Mr India` have earned global acclaim). The competition films were selected from a large number of entries received from all over the northeast by a preview jury comprising noted theatre and film personality Nayan Prasad, eminent film editor Kaju, film critic Chandan Sharma and acclaimed director Bidyut Chakravarty. The festival will have a special tribute to young director Anghsuman Borkotoky by screening his film `Doctor, Nurse & Patient` while another film of his `Windows 4:3` will be in competition. Prizes will be given away in the competition section for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Cinematography. The winners will be awarded with Golden and Silver Rhinos. The films in competition are: `Savages` (Tarunabh Dutta), `Serendipity` (Suraj Duwarah), `Dwita` (Dipankar Das), `Windows 4:3`, `I Am a Poet` (Shashanka Das and Deep Choudhury), `Lemon Brothers Fall` (Utpal Choudhury), `The Silent Darkness` (Jhulan Krishna Mahanta), `IF` (Khanjan Kishore Nath), `Being Jobless` (Shrutismita Changkakoti), `19/87` (Wanphrang K Diengdoh and Dondor E Lyngdoh), `Bond` (Anubhav Mahanta) and `The 4th Law of Motion` (Deepkamal Gogoi). PTI