Aurangabad International Film Festival (AIFF) to open its 6th edition
Aurangabad International Film Festival (AIFF) made announcement of its 6th edition to be held from 9th to 13th January, 2019 in the city of Aurangabad, known world over for famous Ajanta and Ellora caves.
Siraj Syed, the India Correspondent for FilmFestivals.com, a member of FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics will serve on the jury.
He is a Film Festival Correspondent since 1976, Film-critic since 1969 and a Feature-writer since 1970. @SirajHSyed
The 6th Aurangabad International Film Festival will be inaugurated on 9th January, 2019 in the presence of film fraternity and film enthusiasts which will be followed by the screening of the Opening Film ‘Cold War’ (Poland) by Pawel Pawlikowski, the most talked about film of 2018 across the world that is nominated for the Best Foreign Film category of Oscar. The Closing Film is yet another Oscar nominee, ‘Shoplifters’ (Japan) directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda which is also an acclaimed film of 2018.
As in the past AIFF has a competition section of Indian cinema in which 9 films from various regional languages will be screened and will be judged by the international jury under the chairmanship of renowned filmmaker N. Chandra. The other members are French actress Marriana Borgo, scholar Mark Lindley from UK, reputed film critics Faizal Khan and Siraj Syed. First prize for the Best Film carries cash prize of Rs. One lakh and Golden Kailasa Trophy. There eight individual prizes for the best director, script, cinematography, editing, sound design, music, actors - male & female.
The World Cinema section has Ash Is Purest White (China), Loveless (Russia), What Will People Say (Norway), Abu (Canada), The Sweet Requim Canada) whereas Asian Best section features, The Bad Poetry Tokyo (Japan), Zer (Turkistan), Sincerely Yours Dhaka (Bangla Desh), Talan (Kazakhstan), Underpants Thief (Sri Lanka).
In National Award Winners section, Sanskara a Kannada film based on the classic novel by U. R. Anantmurty and directed by Pattabhirama Reddy will be screened.
AIFF has a special presentation on the occasion of 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, a specially designed audio-visual ‘Gandhi & Cinema’ by renowned scholar Amrit Gangar. AIFF is also going to pay tribute to the genius called Ingmar Bergman and stalwarts of Marathi cinema, writer-director-actor P. L. Deshpande, writer-lyrisist-actor G. D. Madgulkar, music composer Sudhir Phadke by screening their masterly works on their 100th birth anniversary. AIFF has very special program to pay tribute to the giants of the Indian film music, Naushad, Kaifi Azmi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Snehal Bhatkar, Manna De, Shamshad Begum on their 100th birth anniversary.
Festival will have an Audience Choice Award prize starting from this year. Festival delegates will vote for their favourite international film screened in contemporary World Cinema and Asian Best sections for this award.
There will be a Poster Exhibition designed by National Film Archives of India in addition to the exclusive exhibition of the life journey of Ingmar Bergman presented by Consulate General of Sweden. AIFF has invited Films Division and Saket Prakashan to set up their booths to make available the collection of DVDs of the of documentaries and the books on cinema respectively.
AIFF has an absolutely innovative addition to its programming this year. An exclusive competition of short films was announced for the upcoming filmmakers of the Marathwada region of Maharashtra, of which Aurangabad is the major city. In this section 10 films will be shown, selected from more than 30 entries which will be judged by the jury of three members, Umesh Kulkarni - an acclaimed filmmaker as Chair Person, Amarjeet Amle - the founder of Spandan Cinema Movement and Manoj Kadam - an award winning filmmaker of AIFF 2018. There will be a Master Class conducted by Umesh Kulkarni and Seminar on ‘With Mobile Phone Everybody Is A Filmmaker’ with reputed film personalities like, Saibal Chatterjee, Sandip Kulkarni, Amarjeet Aamle, Manoj Kadam, Amol Udgirkar and Tejas Deoskar as panelists.
AIFF makes special efforts to go to various educational institutions and cultural groups to conduct film appreciation workshops prior to the festival to let the audience know what AIFF has for them in form of programming.
Ashok Rane
Festival Director
