The Hindu Business Line : Maharashtra: Third Asian film fest kicks off on Oct 21

PUNE and Mumbai are all set to host the third Asian Film Festival. The film festival would be a weeklong affair in Pune starting from October 21, ending on October 27, while in Mumbai it would be between October 20 and 27.

Speaking to newspersons, Mr Virendra Chitrav and Mr Satish Kakatdar, the festival directors, said that the film festival was being jointly organised by the Aashay Film Club and the Indira School of Communication in association with the Asian Film Foundation, Mumbai.

The films will be screened at the City Pride multiplex in Pune, and at the Plaza theatre and the Yashwantrao Chavan auditorium in Mumbai.

Mr Chitrav said that all international film festivals are now screening many Asian films, which are also making their mark at the Oscars.

In the Pune screening, about 20 short films brought in from across the Asian countries in the special diploma film section would be shown. The festival will also feature an Adoor Gopalakrishnan retrospective, while the Mumbaikars would see tribute being paid to the Japanese director, Yasujiro Ozu.

The festival would be inaugurated by veteran actor, director, and filmmaker Amol Palekar on October 21 in Pune. The other attractions include the Zenith Asia Award, the first such award, and would be presented to a film personality from India who has left a lasting impact on cinema.

In the Indian cinema section, movies in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Bengali, Assamese, and Malayalam would be screened and some of the directors would be present for an interaction.

Paheli, which is India's entry to the Oscars this year, would also get a special screening. Mr Chitrav said that about 21 countries would be participating in the film festival; over 70 films would be screened.

Four women directors would be present from Iran for an interaction and six special movies from Israel would also be screened.

Every year there is a special theme and sections where movies from a particular country would be shown; this year, Mongolia has been chosen in this category.

Three special movies from Mongolia would be screened; this is the first time in India that Mongolian movies are being shown. In addition, there would be special screenings of movies from Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Egypt, and Afghanistan.

Mr Chitrav said that the second film festival had screened about 24 movies in two locations, the National Film Archives of India (NFAI) and the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), which can accommodate only 550 people. The second film festival had a registration of about 1,800.

To prevent these problems, he said, this year film festival would be screened at the multiplex, which can house 1,300 people and has four screens.

The schedule is such that about seven movies would be screened in one screen so that a total of 28 movies could be shown to the public in a single day. He added that some 2,500 delegates are expected to attend.

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