THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: ‘Two Half Times in Hell’ also known as the ‘Last Goal’, a Hungarian war drama with football as its soul, would be a much-familiar film to serious movie lovers (especially festival movie lovers) belonging to an older generation.
Nazi officers organise a football match where Germans play against Hungarian war prisoners on the occasion of Hitler’s birthday in a war camp. But for the new generation festival-goers, it promises to be one of a kind experience watching the movie directed in 1963, where the story itself is set in 1944.
The movie is one among the films included in the ‘Kicking and Screening’ package introduced in the 16th IFFK (International Film Festival of Kerala). The other movies in the football package are recent productions, including the Argentinian film ‘Offside’, released in 2011.
What is striking about the film list of the 16th IFFK which has been finalised (minor changes might be made, organisers say) is that most of the films are relatively new. With majority of films being made after the birth of this millennium.
Another new package introduced is the Kaidan Horror Classics package, which has four films from Japan (all made in 2010). The Arab Cinema package and the Philippines package are also newbies in the IFFK show, promising a fresh peek into the respective film industries and into the culture of those lands.
The DEFA (the first production company in post-war Germany) films package has eight films from East Germany, all dating back to the 1960s. The Homage section, among others, pays tribute to Mani Kaul too by screening his movie ‘Uski Roti’. Four Indian films have been included in the competition segment, which has ‘Adaminte Makan Abu’ and ‘Adimadhyandham’ from Malayalam.
The World Cinema category is a pretty long list with 80 films, including ‘Urumi’ directed by Santhosh Sivan.
Among the dozen Retrospective sections, what would be interesting to the Malayali audience would be the Retro on actor Madhu. The list has a Hindi film too in which he acted - ‘Saat Hindustani.’ The Malayalam Today section has films like ‘Gaddama’, ‘Karmayogi’, ‘Pakarnattam’, ‘Akam’, ‘Pranchiyettan and the Saint’, ‘Sankaranum Mohananum’ and ‘Traffic’.
