IFFI 52, 05: Lifetime Achievement Award for Szabó, Scorsese; Saura’s The King of all the World, opening film

IFFI 52, 05: Lifetime Achievement Award for Szabó, Scorsese; Saura’s The King of all the World, opening film

Legendary Hungarian film-maker István Szabó and veteran Hollywood figure Martin Scorsese will be honoured with the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement award at IFFI 52. 83 year-old Szabó is a graduate of the Budapest Academy of Film Art, and is known for such classics as 25 Fireman Street, which was an IFFI favourite, Mephisto and his latest, Zárójelentés.

Scorsese is more widely known to would audiences for his English language block-busters, like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Departed and the yet to be released, Killers of the Flower Moon. Scorsese will soon turn 80. It could not be confirmed whether the two giants of the international film industry will be able to attend the festival and receive their honours in person. 

For the first time ever, IFFI has invited major OTT players to participate in the festival. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Zee5, Voot and Sony Liv will participate at the film festival, through exclusive Master-classes, content launches and previews, curated film package screenings, and various other on-ground and virtual events. Netflix will be organising a 3-day virtual Master-class by the Paris-based renowned School of image and arts, Gobelins – l’école de l’image (the School of the Image). The festival will see India première of the Netflix movie, The Power of the Dog, by New Zealand-based Jane Campion, screen-writer and director, whose The Piano (1993) was quite a rage at IFFI, and a special screening of Kartik Aaryan’s film, Dhamaka.

SonyLiv is organising a master-class by Scam-1992 screenplay-writer, Sumit Purohit, and Saurav Dey, while Zee5 has specially curated Breakpoint - the series on tennis stars Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, by Nitesh Tiwari and Ashwini Iyer Tiwari, for IFFI.

The minister also announced that for the first time ever, films from five BRICS nations will be showcased through the BRICS Film Festival, alongside IFFI. The five countries that constitute the acronym - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - are also the Focus Countries of the 52nd IFFI.

The opening film of this edition of IFFI will be The King of all the World, directed by Carlos Saura (Carmen 1983, Tango 1998, I-Don Giovanni, 2009) the 89-year-old director from Spain. The festival will also pay homage to perhaps Hindi cinema’s greatest actor ever, actor Dilip Kumar, celebrated film-makers and actors Sumitra Bhave, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Sanchari Vijay, Surekha Sikri, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Bertrand Tavernier, Christopher Plummer and Jean-Claude Carriere.

The Retrospective section at the festival will feature renowned Hungarian film-maker Bela Tarr, (Werckmeister harmóniák / Werckmeister Harmonies, 2000, A londoni férfi / The Man from London, 2007, A torinói ló / The Turin Horse, 2011), Russian film-maker and stage director Andrei Konchalovsky (Ivan’s Childhood, 1962, Uncle Vanya, 1970, Tango and Cash, 1989) and Dadasaheb Phalke Award winner Rajinikanth.

The festival will also pay a special tribute to Sean Connery, the first actor to portray fictional British spy James Bond 007on the big screen, in the 1962 milestone, Dr. No, exactly 60 years ago.