‘LETTERS TO
ELZA’ BAGS GOLDEN PEACOCK
SILVER
PEACOCK FOR IRAN’S ‘UNDER THE MOONLIGHT
SPECIAL
JURY AWARD SHARED BY ‘MITR-MY FRIEND’ AND ‘GIRL’S SECRET’
DY.
PM GIVES AWAY THE AWARDS
The Russian film
‘Letters to Elza’ directed by Igor Maslemikov bagged the Golden
Peacock and a cash prize of Rs. 5,00,000 for Best Film by an Asian
Director at the 33rd IFFI, which concluded, here today.
The Silver Peacock and a cash prize of Rs. 2,50,000 for the Most
Promising Director was awarded to Iran’s Reza Mir-Karimi for his
film ‘Under the Moonlight’. Special Jury Award, Silver Peacock
and Rs. 2,50,000 for artistic contribution to a film was shared
by Egypt’s Magdi Ahmed Ali for his film ‘Girl’s Secret’ and India’s
Revathy for her film ‘Mitr-My Friend’.
The awards were presented
by the Deputy Prime Minister, Shri L.K. Advani at the concluding
ceremony. In his address, Shri Advani said that Indian film industry
has made tremendous progress and achieved great capabilities of
world standards. He congratulated the Information and Broadcasting
Minister, Smt. Sushma Swaraj for adding the film market aspect
to the film festival which, he said, should be further expanded
in coming years.
Smt. Swaraj in her
welcome address said that Indian film industry and politics had
great connections. Four of our Chief Ministers, two Union Ministers
and scores of Members of Parliament are from the film industry,
she said.
Announcing the awards,
the Chairman of the Jury, Shri Budhadeb Dasgupta requested the
Government to continue its support to the film festival so that
the coming generations of film-makers and directors benefit from
the experiences of great directors.
The ten-day 33rd
International Film Festival concluded, here today, with the screening
of the Finnish Film "The Man Without A Past" directed
by Aki Kaurismaki. The other major attractions at the Festival
were Francis Veber’s "The Closet", Girish Kasaravalli’s
"Dweepa", Jum Ichikawa’s "Tokyo Marigold",
T.V. Chandran’s "Dany", Revathy’s "Mitr-My Friend",
Maduhr Bhandarkar’s "Chandni Bar" and Mrinal Sen’s "Aamaar
Bhuvan" among others.
The 33rd
International Film Festival showcased over 173 films including
Indian feature and non-feature films from over 40 countries. It
provided the perfect platform for interaction among film-makers,
film goers, actors, journalists, film critics and film institutes
students. More than 3000 delegates including 200 from abroad,
prominent cine personalities of India and about 500 journalists/media
critics from various parts of the country participated in the
ten-day long festival.
Apart from the Asian
Competition the other sections of the IFFI 2002 were the ‘Cinema
of the World’, ‘The Indian Panorama’, ‘Indian Retrospectives’,
‘Reflections’ and ‘Retrospectives’ of various countries. There
were 12 entries for the Asian Competition Section of which the
two Indian entries ‘Chandni Bar’ and ‘Mitr-My Friend’ got rave
reviews both by the Press and the delegates. Eleven of Marcello
Mastroianni’s films were screened as a tribute to the versatile
Italian actor under the Retrospectives Section. All the sevesn
films made on Sharat Chandra Chatterjee’s classic novel ‘Devdas’
were shown in perhaps the first ever Retrospective of a film based
on a single novel. The heroine of the first ‘Devdas’ made in both
in Bengali and Hindi, Jamuna Barua was a big draw at the Festival.
South Africa and
Vietnam were the countries in focus, each offering about ten films
while the movies of Brazil were featured in the Perspectives Section.
Films from Croatia, France, Germany, Japan and Netherlands were
screened in the Reflections Section.
The Film Bazaar added
a new dimension to the IFFI. It met with considerable commercial
success with the exporters associations striking a deal with the
Chinese delegation and over 100 films were sold. Various seminars,
discussions were conducted everyday in the Open Forum set up within
the Siri Fort Campus. The NFDC screenings and the additional late
night screenings enthused the film buffs.
