BANGALORE, October 22: Trains, which have captured the imagination of filmmakers since the first movie shot by the Lumiere brothers in the 19th century, will be the focus of special genre films to be screened at the sixth edition of the Bangalore International Film Festival (6BIFFes) from December 26, 2013 to January 2, 2014.
Film including 27 Down by Awtar Kaul and Murder on the Orient Express by Sidney Lumet will be among the special films screened, said H.N. Narahari Rao, artistic director of 6BIFFes.
Venues
Viewers will be treated to more than 140 films across seven screens as part of the film festival.
These include three screens at Fun Cinemas on Cunningham Road, two screens at Fame Lido, and Sulochana and Priyadarshini screens at the Department of Information and Badami House. “Totally there will be over 245 screenings,” Mr. Rao said.
What’s on offer
Films have been classified under the following categories: retrospective, masters of cinema, train and cinema, special focus on Iceland, Korea, Taiwan and Germany, international film critics award winners, cinema of the world, Asian cinema, and chitrabharati — Kannada cinema.
Thespian Rajkumar’s films are expected to be a major attraction in the retrospective category.
Films of French director Claire Denis, Serbian filmmaker Goran Paskaljeviæ, U.K.’s Mike Light and India’s own Bimal Roy will also be featured in this category.
Samurai films from Japan, which have not been screened in the country so far, will be a major attraction for students of cinema. Gate of Hell by Teinosuke Kinugasa, The Crucified Lovers by Kenji Mizoguchi, Benten Boy by Ito Disukai and Fort of Death by Eiichi Kudo will be some of them.
“We are trying to get at least five Hungarian films including Mefisto by István Szabó. We are also trying to get some landmark films from Latin America,” said N. Vidyashankar, deputy artistic director
Besides, he said, “For the first time, cine enthusiasts will have an opportunity to watch Italian neo-realist films including Vittorio De Seta’s Bread, Love and Dreams and Jina Tolo Brigada, and Luigi Comencini’s Bandits of Orgosolo.
Delay
However, the international competition section is a casualty in this edition too — it was missing from the fifth edition — as the organisers are hard pressed for time. “Had the artistic director been appointed in July, the competition section could have been included in this festival by starting the process early. Now, it is too late,” Mr. Rao said.
The government directed the Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy to hold 6BIFFes only in September. And, according to sources, the festival’s organising committee, chaired by Information Minister Santosh Lad, has not met even once so far.
