Pune film fest to begin on Dec. 5

PUNE: The second Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) will be held from December 5 to 11. Deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal will inaugurate the festival, which will screen a wide range of Indian and international movies, on December 4.
The screenings will be held at E-Square and the City Pride multiplexes, and at the National Film Archive of India auditorium.Oscar-winning No Man’s Land will be screened at the inaugural session, while the closing film will be the Chinese, Warriors of the Heaven and the Earth.
Announcing this at a press conference on Friday, PIFF president and Rajya Sabha MP Suresh Kalmadi said that the festival was at a creative phase.
“We are finding out what to do to make it interesting, how to train the focus on Pune, and how to involve more countries to give it a competitive edge,� he said.
Film-maker Nachiket Patwardhan’s Marathi movie, Devi Ahilya, on the life of Maratha queen Ahilyadevi Holkar, will be premiered on December 5 at City Pride.
The international section include films from Romania, the Netherlands, Germany and China. Spain, Mexico and Norway will get a special focus, with films from these countries being screened in a separate section. British political cinema will be represented with movies like Cry Freedom, and Evita.
The ‘remembering masters’ section will feature films like Pather Panchali and Mumbai cha Javai by Satyajit Ray and Raja Thakur, respectively.
Movies like Mon Oncle will be screened in the French comedy section and the Slovakian movie Sagarmatha will get a special screening.
A special section ‘Tribute’ will screen movies of late legends like Elia Kazan, Johnny Walker, Bhavendranath Saikia and recently departed singer-actress Umadevi (Tun Tun). Indian films like Maqbool, Raghu Romeo, Paadam Onnu oru Vilapam in Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, Telugu will also be screened among others.
Legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar and evergreen star Dev Anand will be presented with Lifetime achievement awards on December 7 at the NFAI auditorium. Dev Anand’s films like Guide, Hum Dono and films Saadhi Manase and Mohityanchi Manjula, in which Mangeshkar worked as music composer will also be screened.
PIFF chairman Sabina Sanghvi said that around 1,500 delegates had enrolled for the festival and they expected 1,500 more. She added that the festival had received a rousing response from students and film clubs.