Gujarati film ‘Hellaro’ directed by Abhishek Shah, which had won the Best Feature Film Swarna Kamal at the 66th National Film Awards announced in August, will open the feature section of the prestigious Indian Panorama at the 50th International Film Festival of India (IFFI).
The opening film of the Non-Feature section of Indian Panorama would be Ashish Pandey-directed ‘Nooreh’, a touching short film set in Kashmir.
The section, which showcases the tapestry of Indian cinema at IFFI every year, is dominated by Marathi films this year, with five of the language leading from the front. Malayalam, Bengali and Hindi cinema too have fairly good representation, while Assamese and Odia, among major Indian language cinemas, have drawn a blank.
There are two films in Hindi, including noted director Prakash Jha’s Adil Hussain-starrer ‘Pareeksha’. Multiple IFFI award-winning Bengali filmmaker Kaushik Ganguly returns this year with Prosenjit-starrer ‘Jyesthoputro’, while last year’s award-winner Lijo Jose Pellissery is back with ‘Jallikattu’, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival recently.
For the first time ever, ‘Kenjira’, a film in Paniya dialect spoken by a tribal community living along the Kerala-Karnataka border areas, is part of the Indian Panorama. Another rare language film, ‘Netaji’ in Irula dialect, is also part of the section.
Northeast India is represented by Khasi film ‘Iewduh’ by Pradip Kurbah and Panchengpa film ‘Land of the Poison Women’ by Manju Borah. While Panchengpa is a language spoken by a sub-tribe of the Monpas living near the Indo-Tibetan border in Arunachal Pradesh, Borah is a filmmaker from Assam.
The Feature Film jury was headed by noted Malaylam filmmaker Priyadarshan who has also made several blockbusters in Hindi. The Non-Feature Film Jury was headed by documentary filmmaker Rajendra Jangley.
A total of 26 films will be showcased in the Feature films section, including five films that are chosen from among a pool of mainstream films suggested by Film Federation of India (FFI).
Interestingly, the Non-Feature section, which has a maximum capacity of 21 films, this year has only 15 films.
The Feature films in chosen are:
‘Kenjira’ (Paniya, director Manoj Kana), ‘Tujhya Aaila’ (Marathi, director Sujay Sunil Dahake), ‘Anandi Gopal’ (Marathi, director Sameer Sanjay Vidwans), ‘Bhonga’ (Marathi, director Shivaji Lotan Patil), ‘Mai Ghat: Crime No 103/2005’ (Marathi, director Ananth Narayan Mahadevan), ‘Photo-Prem’ (Marathi, director Aditya Rathi & Gayatri Patil), ‘Pareeksha’ (Hindi, director Prakash Jha), ‘Bahattar Hoorain’ (Hindi, director Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan), ‘Oththa Seruppu Size 7’(Tamil, director Radhakrishnan Parthiban), ‘House Owner’ (Tamil, director Lakshmy Ramakrishnan), ‘Nirban’(Bengali, director Gautam Halder). ‘Jyeshthoputro’ (Bengali, director Kaushik Ganguly),’Ek Je Chhilo Raja’ (Bengali, director Srijit Mukherji), ‘Kolaambi’(Malayalam, director T K Rajeev Kumar), ‘Uyare’ (Malayalam, director Manu Ashokan), ‘Jallikattu’ (Malayalam, director Lijo Jose Pellissery), ‘Ranganayaki’ (Kannada, director Dayal Padmanabhan), ‘Netaji’(Irula, director Vijeesh Mani), ‘Iewduh’(Khasi, director Pradip Kurbah), ‘In The Land Of Poison Women’(Pangchenpa, director Manju Borah), and ‘Hellaro’(Gujarati, director Abhishek Shah).
The five mainstream films in the section are: ‘Uri : The Surgical Strike’(Hindi, director Aditya Dhar), ‘F2’(Telugu, director Anil Ravipudi), ‘Gully Boy’(Hindi, director Zoya Akhtar), ‘Super 30’(Hindi, director Vikash Bahl), and ‘Badhaai Ho’(Hindi, director Amit Ravindernath Sharma).
The Non-Feature films in the section are: ‘Bohubritta’(Assamese, director Utpal Dutta), ‘Bouma’(Bengali, director Debatma Mandal), ‘Mamatva’(Brij, director Kirti), ‘Letters’(English, director Nitin Shingal), ‘A Thankless Job’(English, director Vicky Barmecha), ‘Elephants Do Remember’(English, director Swati Pandey, Manohar Singh Bisht & Viplove Rai Bhatia), ‘Bridge’ (Hindi, director Bikramjit Gupta), ‘Maya’ (Hindi, director Vikas Chandra), ‘Sathyarthi’(Hindi, director Pankaj Johar), ‘Nooreh’(Kashmiri, director Ashish Pandey), ‘Shabdhikunna Kalpa’(Malayalam, director Jayaraj), ‘Iravilum Pakalilum Odiyan’(Malayalam, director Novin Vasudev), ‘Gadhul’(Marathi, director Ganesh Shivaji Shelar), ‘Son Rise’ (Hindi, director Vibha Bakshi), ‘The Secret Life of Frogs’ (English, director Ajay Bedi & Vijay Bedi).
