Cinevesture International Film Festival (CIFF), the first international film festival to be held in Chandigarh from March 27 to 31, on Monday announced its line up of over 67 titles including world cinema, Indian feature films, classics as well as shorts films.
The festival will open with Juliette Binoche-starrer French culinary drama "The Taste of Things", which won director Tran Anh Hung the best director prize at Cannes. It will come to a close with South Korea’s highest grossing film of 2024, horror drama "Exhuma" ('Pamyo').
CIFF will showcase 24 award-winning international features in the World Cinema section, 17 indie gems in the India Unveiled, 27 shorts in Brief Encounters, a curated section of children’s films and timeless classics from Satyajit Ray to Guru Dutt.
The festival will screen acclaimed films like Holocaust drama, "The Zone of Interest", which won the international feature film Oscar on Sunday, Palme d'Or winner and Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Monster", last-year's best actor Oscar winner "The Whale" and acclaimed documentary "Seven Winters in Tehran" among others.
Award-winning Indian features and documentaries such as Marathi film "Sthal", "Stolen", Rima Das’ Assamese film "Tora’s Husband", Gurvinder Singh’s Punjabi feature "Adh Chanani Raat", Harjit Singh’s documentary on the late Punjabi painter and writer Imroz, Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Malayalam film "Malaikottai Vaaliban", Sreemoyee Singh’s documentary "And, Towards Happy Alleys", an ode to Iranian cinema and poetry featuring Jafar Panahi, Varun Grover’s short "Kiss" Riz Ahmed starrer short "Dammi" are also part of the line-up.
The festival will host stars like Richa Chadha, Ali Fazal, Roshan Mathew, Gulshan Devaiah, Varun Grover, Rasika Duggal, Rashmeet Kaur (singer), Hansal Mehta, Shekhar Kapur, Sudhir Mishra, and Tahira Kashyap Khurrana.
The opening and closing films will be open air screenings in the Government Museum & Arts Gallery, Sector 10, the main venue of CIFF 2024. Three more Open Air screenings are scheduled of classics such as "Jalsaghar", "Kaagaz Ke Phool", "The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone", a recut of the original "Godfather 3" by Francis Ford Coppola to mark the 30th anniversary of the film.
An experiential cinema exhibition to celebrate the centenary of Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand is also set up in the Rose Garden Underpass in collaboration with National Film Archives (NFDC) and students of Chandigarh College of Architecture. Children’s films are open to all children from the ages of 10-17 years at 9 AM each day from 27-31 March 2024 at Cinepolis Jagat.
The inaugural edition of the festival, organised by Cinevesture Pvt Ltd founder and CEO Nina Lath, will also feature CIFF/market to facilitate the business and craft of filmmaking. More than 15 curated projects by creators with a strong presence in the Indian film industry are being presented at market. CIFF will also feature workshops, master classes and panel discussions.
“Cinevesture International Film Festival is envisaged as a platform for the two key stakeholders, namely audiences and producers. Its various verticals have been designed keeping the same in mind. We trust that in time, CIFF will serve as a reliable festival offering high-quality content for audiences and enhanced business opportunities for the film industry,” Nina Lath said.
The festival is supported by the Government Museum & Art Gallery, Chandigarh, Department of Tourism Chandigarh, and Chandigarh Administration.
VS Kundu, a retired IAS and the former head of the National Films Division of India, has come aboard as the director of the film festival and industry veteran Bina Paul serves as the artistic director.
“CIFF is the first global-scale cinema event to ever happen in Chandigarh with the support of Chandigarh Tourism, the Department of Culture and Chandigarh Administration. It is a truly international film festival designed to match the best international film festivals," Kundu said.
“Our endeavour is to build a strong foundation for an annual event that the global film industry will look forward to, and which will foster effective business relationships between producers and distributors and the filmmakers of the region,” he added.
Paul said the festival aims to bring "a potpourri of cinema" to the people of Chandigarh.
"There will be something for everyone. Festival favourite International & Indian films for film buffs and for students, and the latest trends in Korean, Japanese and French cinema will be on show. Children will get a chance to see films from many parts of the world, hearing stories they may otherwise not," she said.
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