🎥 IFFI 55 (November 20-28) ends (see below)
🎥 Connected Film Bazaar (November 20-24) (trade section)
🎥 London Film Festival reviews – new films still to be released…pending – (Italics denotes still to be published…)
🎥 Mami – Mumbai Film Festival – Kanu Behl (‘Despatch’), Suman Ghosh (‘The Ancient’) and Ram Reddy (‘The Fable’) and Rima Das (see below…)
🎥 Busan International Film Festival – round-up and Rima Das’ ‘Village Rockstars 2’ gets award – acv interview
INDIA’S biggest international film festival – the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) concluded with the presentation of the Golden Peacock award.
Fifteen films vied for the title with the gong going to the Lithuanian ‘Toxic’ – a debut film by Saulė Bliuvaitė. The jury headed by ‘Lagaan’ director Ashutosh Gowariker praised the coming of age film for its deep and sensitive portrayal of youth “growing up in an economically deprived society with so much sensitivity and empathy”.
Producer Giedre Burokaite shares the 40 Lakhs (£37,000/$47,000) prize money with the director.
The runners up award – the Silver Peacock for Best Director went to Romanian Bogdan Muresanu for his film,’The New Year that Never Came’. The film charts six individual tales on the eve of a revolution, with the jury citing it as a “tragicomedy” that succeeds “brilliantly”. Muresanu gets an award and Rs15 Lakhs (£13,000/$18,000). Overall, the festival screened 180 international titles from 16 countries and 109 Indian films and ended on Thursday (November 28).
🎥 Actor Vikrant Massi wins Film Personality of the Year at the festival – for his role in the hit film ‘12th Fail’ by Vidhu Vinod Chopra
🎥 Best Indian Debut Director went to Navjot Bandiwadekar for his film, ‘Gharat Ganapati’
🎥 Best Indian web series ‘Lampan’ in Marathi by Set in rural background, it is a coming of age saga and directed by Nipun Dharmadhikari
🎥 At the closing ceremony, the Special Recognition Award for contribution to Bharatiya Cinema went to actor Allu Arjun for his contributions to Indian Cinema, with his highy anticipated (December 2024) blockbuster ‘Pushpa 2‘ building on the success of the first.
Internationally recognised by IFFI…
🎥 Best acting awards went to Clément Faveau (Male) in ‘Holy Cow’ and in the female category jointly to Vesta Matulytė and Ieva Rupeikaitė in ‘Toxic’.
🎥 The Jury also gave a special award to French filmmaker Louise Courvoisier for ‘Holy Cow’ – another coming of age film where an 18 year old has to contend with pleasures of youth alongside looking after a seven year old sister and trying to make it as an outstanding cheesemaker
🎥 US director Sarah Friedland won the Best Debut Feature in the international section for her film, ‘Familiar Touch’. It is a film about caregiving, ageing and love.
🎥 Alongside Gowariker on the jury were director Anthony Chen from Singapore, British American producer Elizabeth Karlsen, Spanish producer Fran Borgia and Australian film editor Jill Bilcock.
🎥 Earlier, Australian director Phillip Noyce was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award – and this is covered in our preview…
AR Rahman – whose recent announcement that he was separating from his wife Saira Banu of nearly 30 years caused a stir within the Indian media – still attended the talk on India’s late iconic prolific songstress, Lata Mangeshkar (1929-2022) and her contribution to film – in a long career her voice was one of the most recognisable on screen and elsehwere. Other prominent Indian stars at this year’s IFFI were Ranbir Kapoor, Manoj Bajpayee, Rajkummar Rao and Yami Gautam.
Oscar winner Guneet Monga Kapoor was among the high profile India based producer contingent, as was Bobby Bedi (‘Bandit Queen’), a familiar and knowledgeable figure at international film festivals around the world, representing India.
Among the other prominent Indian filmmakers appearing at IFFI this year were Ramesh Sippy who made arguably one of the greatest Bollywood films of all time – ‘Sholay’ (1975) with Amitabh Bachchan; Indian directing icon Subhash Ghai (‘Taal’ – 1999); Imtiaz Ali (‘Amar Singh Chamkila’) -2024 Netflix); actors and film personalities Bhumi Pednekar, Suhasinhi Maniratnam and Kushboo Sundar participated in a talk together with Vani Tripathi Tikoo moderating this session on women in the Indian film industry.
Film Bazaar (November 20-24) takeaways – more international co-productions, with Spain and Australia leading the way. More than 300 productions were shared across the board and at various stages of development.
🎥 The four-day gathering of international filmmakers and film production companies at the Marriott Resort in Goa is becoming an increasingly popular destination for those looking for collaboration and further creativity with Indian filmmakers and associated professionals.
🎥 Shekhar Kapur, who heads up IFFI has brought more attention and interest, while Vani Tripathi Tikoo, a familiar face representing India at international film festivals and on the steering committee for both, has helped to shape an increasingly focused and sharper Film Bazaar.
🎥 India’s software and computing muscle is active in the area of AI and several Indian companies were in Goa showcasing work and showing that text can be turned into video quickly and imaginatively.
🎥 The international element of the market has been aided by the recruitment of Jérôme Paillard who headed up Cannes’ Marche du Film and is now an advisor to Film Bazaar. Christian Jeune who is from Festival De Cannes was also in Goa participating on panels.
🎥 In the competitive co-production section Payal Sethi’s ‘The Disappearing Flower’ won the festival’s first ever $10,000 cash prize. It is an Indian-German production and about a lonely Indian housewife in Kerala whose husband is working in the Gulf and has not been heard of, for a while. Sethi is based in Germany and the film will be made in the language of Malayalam.
🎥 There were two other prize winners, both collecting $5,000 – Sanju Surendran’s ‘Fishers of Men’ and Pranjal Dua’s ‘All Ten Heads of Ravana’. The former is another film in Malayalam and about a vegetarian man who becomes obsessed with fish, while the latter is a Hindi language production and involves French production talent.
🎥 High profile Bollywood casting supremo Mukesh Chhabra (and emerging director) announced that he is to be involved in two international co-production market works. Chhabra is working gratis on feature film ‘Baaghi Bechare’ (‘Reluctant Rebels’) and web series, ‘Chauhan’s BnB Bed and Besara’.
Both IFFI and Film Bazaar are organised by the National Film and Development Corporation (NFDC) of India – and comes under the Indian Government’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Last year, www.asianculturevulture.com covered the festival as a guest of the NFDC and also covered 2018 and 2019 editions, independently.
More here about the awards at the end of the festival https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2078796
All pictures: thanks to PIB IFFI
