THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Come Sunday and four classic films, selected by noted film maker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, will be screened at the Banner Film Festival organised by Banner Film Society at Lenin Balavadi, behind Tagore Theatre at Vazhuthacaud.
Polish film ‘Kanal’ (1956) directed by Andrzej Wajda; Japanese movie ‘The Woman in the Dunes’ (1964) by Hiroshi Teshigahara, Aki Kaurismaki’s Finnish movie ‘The Man Without a Past’ (2002) and the Ukranian SSR movie ‘Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors’ (1964) directed by Sergei Parajanov are scheduled to be screened at 9.30 am, 11.30 am, 2.30 pm and 4.30 pm respectively.
‘Kanal’ was the first ever film made about the Warsaw Uprising, and tells the story of a company of Home Army resistance fighters escaping the Nazi onslaught through the city’s sewers. Kanal is the second film of Wajda’s War Trilogy, preceded by ‘A Generation’ and followed by ‘Ashes and Diamonds’.
‘Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors’ is Parajanov’s first major work that earned him international acclaim for its rich use of costume and colour. The film also features a detailed portrayal of Ukrainian Hutsul culture, showing not only the harsh Carpathian environment and brutal family rivalries, but also the beauty of Hutsul traditions, music, costumes, and dialect.
A Finnish comedy-drama, ‘The Man Without a Past’, is the second installment in Kaurismaki’s Finland trilogy; the other two films being ‘Drifting Clouds’ (1996) and ‘Lights in the Dusk’ (2006). The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002 and won the Grand Prix at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.
The film ‘The Woman in the Dunes’, is on entomologist Jumpei Niki , who is on an expedition to collect insects which inhabit sand dunes. The film won the Special Jury Prize at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival and, somewhat unusual for an avant-garde film, was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar the same year.