Pune international film festival to screen films from 12 countries

PUNE: Films from 12 countries, including one from India, have made it to the final 14 in the world

competition section

of the 15th

Pune International Film Festival

(PIFF).

The festival will be held in the city between January 12 and 19.

The films nominated for the competition section will be judged by seven-member jury from five countries.

Indian filmmaker Aparna Sen

would be among the first-time judges at PIFF.

Festival director Jabbar Patel addressed a news conference on Tuesday to announce the nominated films in the world competition, student section for live competition, as well as animation films. Patel said, “This year, the festival received over 1,100 entries for the competitions from over 95 countries. Among these entries, over 225 films would be screened at the festival, including the Indian film Lady at the Lake directed by Haobam Paban Kumar.”

Among the jury members, Sen and Gowri Ramnarayan are the Indian jury members besides, Jerzy Stuhr (Poland), Goran Paskaljevic (Serbia), Jorge Arriagada (Chile), Jens Fischer (Sweden), Bennet Rathnayake (Sri Lanka) and Narges Abyer (Iran) will judge the competition section.

Zoology and The Student from Russia, Someone To Talk To from China, Slack Bay and The Innocents from France and In Between from Israel are some of the films nominated in the world competition section. Two films from the Film and Television Institute of India — Andhere Mein and Kalpvriksha — have been nominated in the student section.

Marathi film body to introduce another award

This year onwards, the Akhil Bhartiya Marathi Chitrapat Mahamandal will sponsor an award for the best female actor in the Marathi competition section besides four awards for male actor, director, screenplay and cinematographer. President of the Mahamandal Meghrajraje Bhosale announced the additional award at the news conference and said that it would now be a regular feature at PIFF. The list of award categories include Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematographer and Best Female Actor. The prize money for each award is Rs 25,000.