NEW DELHI: Two Indian films, Priyadarshan’s Tamil film 'Kanchivaram' and Ramesh Laxman More’s Marathi film 'Mahasatta', have been selected for the competition section of the 39th International Film Festival in Goa.
The opening ceremony of the festival — to be held between November 22 and December 2 will be inaugurated by actor Rekha, while actor Kamal Hassan will be the chief guest for the closing ceremony. The focus will be on Iran, Russia and Switzerland.
“The opening film of the festival has not yet been finalised due to tight competition between the two short-listed films — Hong Kong director Peter Chan’s Warlords and Eric Khoo’s My Magic from Singapore,” said S M Khan, festival director.
Peter Chan heads the jury, which comprises Venice Film Festival director Marco Mueller, Iranian actor Niki Karimi, Filipino director Lav Diaz and Indian actor Tabu. Iranian film Song of Sparrows will be screened as the closing film.
In Indian Panorama section, 26 feature films and 21 non-feature films will be screened. Special retrospectives on film moguls Bimal Roy and L V Prasad will be held to mark their birth centenary year. A retrospective on 75 years of Kannada cinema will be presented.
Four films based on the Taj Mahal will be screened. “This time we have introduced registration on a daily basis. One can watch three films a day, but it has been restricted to Indian films,” said Khan. Six popular pre-1950 films from the National Film Archives of India will be screened.
Other films in the competition section include My Mother’s Tears (Argentina/Germany), The Shaft (China), Rupantor (Bangladesh), The Song of Sparrows (Iran), The Red Spot (Japan/Germany), Tulpan (Kazakhstan), Pensil (Malaysia), Ploning (Philippines), Akasa Kusum (Sri Lanka) and The Coffin (Thailand).