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The 33rd Cairo International Film Festival held recently
had Indian CAIRO is one of the most colourful cities in the world. Celebrating an international film festival in this historic city with Indian cinema invited as guest of honour made it extra special this year. Noted Indian filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrisnan was the chairperson of the jury. Vikas Swarup, Consul General of India in Japan, famous for Q & A that inspired Slumdog Millionnaire, was member of the Digital Long Film Competition Jury. Madhur Bhandarkar was honoured with a retrospective of his films. Boney Kapoor, Sridevi, Irrfan Khan and Celina Jaitley were honoured. The International Competition for Long Feature Films screened 17 films mapping countries from Argentina, Hungary, France, Russia, Lithuania, Sri Lanka, Slovenia, Morocco, Mexico, to Turkey and others.
Integral India featured 23 films. This section screened Adoor’s Four Women, Girish Kasaravalli’s Gulabi Talkies, Vishal Bharadwaj’s Kaminey, Kabir Khan’s New York, Neeraj Pandey’s A Wednesday and Bhawna Talwar’s Dharm. Other interesting films were Satish Manwar’s Gabhricha Paus on farmer suicides in Vidharba, Maharashtra, Priya Darshan’s Kanchivaram, set against the backdrop of Kanchi’s silk weaving industry, Sameer Hanchate’s Gafla (Hindi) on the impact of the stock market scam on an ordinary man, Laxmikant Shetgaonkar’s The Man Beyond the Bridge, Seema Kapoor’s Haat – The Weekly Bazaar based on natha-pratha, Suhail Tatari’s Summer – 2007, Rupa Iyer’s Mukhaputa, Nikhil Nagesh Bhatt’s Saluun, with Mira Nair’s Amelia forming the closing film. Mukhaputa deals with an adoptive mother who discovers after some years that the child is HIV at birth. Saluun is based on a true incident in a small town in Maharasthra where locals decided to teach the corrupt government officials a lesson. Arun Vaidyanathan’s Achchamundu Achchamundu is about a young South Indian family in the US whose settled life is threatened with the entry of one Theodore Robertson into their lives. Raman, by Dr. Biju, a reaction against former US President George Bush. The festival was jointly inaugurated by Egyptian Minister of Culture, H E Farouk Hosni and Indian Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Raghu Menon. Screenings of films from Algeria and two films by noted Italian director Marco Bellochio, The Nanny (1999) and My Mother’s Smile (2002) formed other tributes. Two Indian feature films, New York, directed by Kabir Khan and Madholal Keep Walking, directed by debut-making director Jai Tank, were screened in the International Competition for Long Feature Films. Subrat Dutta, who played the title role of Madholal in Madholal Keep Walking, shared the Best Actor Prize. The film is about a happy security guard, Madholal, who lives in a low middle-class neighbourhood in Mumbai with his wife and two growing children. He loses an arm in the train bomb blasts on July 11 and his world collapses around him. The other winner is Egyptian actor Fathy Abdel Wahab who shared the award for Nile Birds. The joint citation said that it was "for their sustained and convincing performances portraying a man up against life’s travails with the pain and humour inherent in the situation." Mudhal Mudhal Mudhal Varai (First Time)’ by Krishna Seshadri Gomatam was selected for the digital competition section. This film bagged the Silver Award (jointly) in the section for its "engaging look at man’s eternal struggle to understand the meaning of life and death. The jury found the director’s use of a lighthearted narrative to explore a serious theme both innovative and endearing." It is about an aspiring filmmaker desperately trying to make his first film. The other Silver Award went to Exile in Paris (France) directed by Ahmet Zirek for "the director’s lived experience and creative use of phone conversations that gave an added dimension to the poignant quest for identity in a world full of borders." Eighteen films screened in Official Selection – Out of Competition raised scary questions on mental instability, loneliness and alienation and meaningless, purposeless violence. Examples are – The Limits of Control (USA/Spain/Japan), New Town Killers (UK), The Soloist (France), Ward Number 6 (Russia), Lost Times (Hungary), Mr. 73 (France) among others. That Long Night, a Syrian film directed by Hatem Ali, bagged one of the two awards given away by the Ministry of Culture, Egypt, for the Best Film in the Arabic Feature Films Section for its bold portrayal of a relevant issue, and a heart-breaking phenomenon gripping a community. The other top award went to the Palestinian film Amreeka directed by Cherien Dabis. The film managed to bring together the finest aspects of scriptwriting, storytelling, and performance to create an artistic work that is simultaneously entertaining, gripping, and attractive to mainstream and art house audiences alike. It also won the award for the Best Screenplay from the Ministry of Culture for Cherien Dabis. The Golden Award in the Digital Competition section went to The Rapture of "Fe" (Phillipines) directed by Alvin B. Yapan for its sensitive portrayal of a woman caught between an abusive husband and an impotent lover, in the process illuminating our understanding of human relationships. The film stood out for its unflinching realism and strong performances that brought alive the complexity of a woman’s quest for fulfillment. Karolina Piechota won the Best Actress Award for her performance in Splinters (Poland) for the warmth, humour and credibility she brought to her role. The French film The Hedgehog (France), directed by Mona Achache won the International Critics Prize (FIPRESCI). It is about an unexpected discovery by an 11-year-old girl who is as gifted as she is suicidal. It also won the Special Jury Prize for the young director. Letters to Father Jacob (Finland) brought the Best Screenwriter award to Klaus Haro for "structuring a story that is constantly engaging and offering surprises as it goes onto celebrate the essence of humanity." It also won the Prize for the Best Film for its excellent cinematic form and the deep study of human condition that went to its producer. The biggest attraction of the festival was the screening of the Egyptian classic Al Mummia (The Night of Counting the Years) screened on the "Sound and Light" stage in the Pyramids area with a chilly wind blowing, and the Sphinx lit in blue, hovering in the background. Directed by Shadi Abdel Salam (1969) the film is set in 1881, on the eve of British Colonial Rule. It is adapted from a true story. The Abd el-Rasuls, an upper-Egyptian clan, had been robbing a cache of mummies discovered at tomb DB320 near Kurna village and selling them illegally in the black market. Despite the danger to his life, one of the clan, a son of one of the leaders, complains to the police and also helps the Antiquities Service to find the cache. An enlightening
symposium on Indian Cinema was held at Hotel Sofitel El Gezirah
addressed by Egyptian film critic Fawzi Soliman, Adoor Gopalakrishnan,
Boney Kapoor and Sandeep Marwah along with presentations made by
Egyptian distributors of Indian films in Egypt. A comprehensive
overview was made by this writer as an opening to the symposium.
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