BANGALORE, India -- The Inauguration of the 6th Bengaluru International Film Festival will be held on the evening of Thursday, Dec 26th. Regular screenings for the Delegates will commence on Dec 27th.

The screenings will be held at seven screens as follows:

1) 3 screens at Fun Cinema, Sigma mall, Cunningham Road.

2) 2 screens at Lido Inox, Halasur.

3) 1 screen at Sulochana (Information Department), Infantry Road and

4) 1 screen at Priyadarshini (Badami House), N. R. Square.

All the screens are located within a range of 2 km from the Vartha Soudha (Information office), the venue of the main administrative office of the festival, for the duration of the event.

The Content of the Festival: Total 152 films – 45 countries

1) Cinema of the World - 50 films

2) Asian Cinema Competition - 10 films

3) Indian Cinema Competition – 10 films

4) Kannada Cinema Competition – 9 films

5) Languages and Dialects of Karnataka – 2 films

6) Retrospectives: Goran Paskaljevic (Serbia)/Mike Leigh (Britain)/Denis Claire (France)/Malini Fonseka (Actress – Sri Lanka) - 20 films

7) Indian Cinema Classics (NFAI) – Bimal Roy - 5 films

8) Kannada Retrospective – Dr. Rajkumar – 5 films

9) Country focus – Taiwan/Germany - 10 films

10) Latin American Cinema – 7 films

11) Special Focus - Trains – 5 films

12) Fipresci Award winners – 5 films

13) Netpac Award Winners: - 5 films

14) Old Classics:

a. Samurai Films – Japan -4.

b. Italian Neorealism- 4 films.

15) Homage: Rituparno Ghosh - 1 film.

Highlights of the Festival Films:

We have a collection of films that have won awards at Major International film festivals such as Berlin, Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Moscow, Venice and Toronto.

Separate Competition Sections for Asian, Indian and Kannada Cinema with cash prizes.

This year, instead of one single award, this year Kannada cinema competition will have three awards. Two films have the option of being part of Indian and Asian film competition also.

The special screening facility accorded to films made in languages and other dialects of Karnataka will continue this year as well with screening of the films made in Tulu and Banjara language. Films made by world renowned filmmakers such as Andrzej Wajda, Asghar Farhadi, Istvan Szabo, Francois Ozon, Susan Blier, Goran Paskaljevic, Mike Leigh, Claire Denis and Thomas Vinterberg are being screened in the event. This year’s main highlight is the presentation of a bunch of highly-acclaimed Asian films from China, Korea, Japan, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Our emphasis is also on showcasing a very good package of latest Latin American films that have won critical acclaim and awards at various film festivals. The Kannada films retrospective this year is dedicated to Dr. Rajkumar films. Under the Old Classics revival section we have Bimal Roy films, Samurai films from Japan and Neorealism films from Italy.

6th BIFFES has two special sections: FIPRESCI Award Winners and NETPAC Award winners, which are always the unique features of our event. The Cinema of the World has more than 50 films from different countries that represent the present trends in the contemporary world cinema. The creative team has taken pains to see that more importance is given to the quality of cinema and rather than quantity. We have designed program in such way that the films selected conform to the International standard. Most interestingly we are happy to mention that there are fourteen films in our selection from different countries which are entries for the 86th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film (Oscar). This by itself is a great achievement and it will be a treat for the delegates.

Format of the films

More than 80 percent of the films that we are getting are in Digital format and slowly but surely the celluloid format in 35 mm is fading out of the festival circuits all over the world.

Media Centre:

The media centre will be located in the Vartha Soudha (Information office) and all media conferences will be held in the same location.

The World in Bengaluru

Many celebrities of the world film fraternity have been invited to participate in the event.

The list of invited guests includes:

v Malini Fonseka, World renowned film actress and MP from Sri Lanka

v Goran Paskaljevic, famous filmmaker from Serbia,

v Pouran Derekshande, noted lady filmmaker from Iran,

v Jeffry Juterian, Well known filmmaker from Philippines,

v Dharmasena Pathiraja, noted filmmaker and Netpac Jury member from Sri Lanka,

v Rajesh Gongaju, President, Federation of Film Societies and Netpac Jury Member from Nepal

v Golam Biplob, noted filmmaker from Bangaldesh

v Juris Poskus filmmaker from Latvia

v Heinz Badewitz, Director, Hof Film Festival, Germany,

v Pola Beck, filmmaker from Germany

v Taru Makela, Filmmaker from Finland

Many Indian filmmakers and critics from all over the Country are expected to participate in the event.

Delegate Registration:

Delegate registration will commence from 2nd December 2013 at the following venues:

1. Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce, Crescent Road.

2. Information Department , Infantry Road

3. Biffes Office, Badami House.

4. Suchitra Film Society, BSK 2nd Stage

Online registration is also available at www.biffes.in

Delegate fee:

Rs. 500/- for general public

Rs 250/- for students, film society members and film professionals.

Exhibition, Seminar and Master Classes:

1) A curtain raiser seminar will be held in the third week of December 2013.

2) Master Classes by cinema experts will be held during the festival.

3) A Poster Exhibition on 100 years of Indian cinema, presented by DAVP will be held during the festival.


Contact
Gokul Menon