The
8th Dhaka International Film Festival
SWM
Desk
The 8th
Dhaka International Film Festival (DIFF) will be held in Dhaka
from January 15 to 23. 100 films are expected to be screened
at the festival. Participating countries -- besides host country
Bangladesh -- include Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, China,
Denmark, Egypt, England, France, Germany, India, Indonesia,
Iran, Italy, Hungary, Latvia, Lebanon, Norway, Russia, Sweden,
Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tunisia and the USA.
The festival
includes 11 segments: Competition Section, Retrospective, Tribute,
Special Session, Cinema of the World, Children's Film Festival,
Focus on Switzerland, Films from Scandinavian Countries, Bangladesh
Panorama, Contemporary Italian Cinema and Independent Films.
"Retrospective" will showcase films by German film
director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Polish filmmaker Krzysztof
Zanussi, Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi and Indian filmmaker
Shyam Benegal. "Tribute" will feature a full-length
film by Russian filmmaker Sergei Bondarchuk and "Bangladesh
Panorama" will feature five to seven films made between
1956 and 2003. DIFF will for the first time be screening films
by independent filmmakers in video Beta cam/VCD/DVD format in
the Independent Films Section.
The Rainbow
Award will be given to the best film among all the segments.
Prizes will also be awarded in the Competition Section (restricted
to Asian films only), Cinema of the World (the Audience Award),
and the Children's Film Festival (Best Juvenile Audience Award)
segments. A daylong series of international seminars will also
be held at the German Cultural Center on January 18, 2004, organised
by the International Film Critics Association of Bangladesh
(IFCAB), the theme for this year's seminars being "Globalisation
and Film".
The festival
is being organised by Rainbow Film Society which was formed
by young Bangladeshi film enthusiasts in 1977. The society organises
regular film shows and film related seminars and workshops and
also brings out the only cinema periodical from Bangladesh,
"The Celluloid", which reaches readers the world over.
Films will be screened, among other places, at the Public Library,
National Museum, the German, Indian and Russian Cultural Centres
and at Balaka and Binaka cinema halls.