Four Indian films to compete at the first BRICS Film Festival

KOLKATA: At the last BRICS Summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had proposed a BRICS Film Festival and film awards. On Wednesday, the names of the films that will compete at the 1st BRICS Film Festival was announced. Four Indian films have made it to the list of 20 films in competition. Among them are Kaushik Ganguly’s ‘Cinemawala’, SS Rajamouli’s ‘Baahubali – The Beginning’, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Bajirao Mastaani’ and Ram Reddy’s “Thithi”. The festival will be held at Delhi’s Siri Fort auditorium complex from September 2 to 6.

The BRICS Film Festival is being organized as part of the special events planned in run-up to the BRICS summit to be held in India. The event is being organized as a special initiative by the Prime Minister to help build bridges of friendship between the people of the member states, by showcasing art and culture, through films. Through this festival, people of the film industry of member countries will explore areas of cooperation in the domain of cinema, culture and cuisine. At the festival, five awards will be given to the films in competition. They are Best Film, Best Actor (Male), Best Actor (Female), Best Director and the Special Jury Award.

The opening film will be the world premiere of the Malayalam movie, “Veeram”. It has been directed by the multiple National Award-winning Jayaraj Rajasekharan Nair and stars Kunal Kapoor. The movie is a transcreation of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. Nair’s last film “Ottal” had won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The closing film would be the Chinese movie, titled “Skiptrace” starring Jackie Chan. It has been directed by Renny Harlin. The movie is an action-comedy that revolves around a Chinese detective who teams up with an American gambler to catch a Chinese criminal. The five-day event will see an amalgamation of films, song, dance and food of the five member countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Said Kaushik Ganguly, “My film ‘Cinemawala’ had won the prestigious Unesco Felini prize at International Film Festival of India in 2015. Being selected for the first BRICS Film Festival is indeed a proud moment for me. This is a double whammy for me since ‘Cinemawala’ is the only one representing my industry.”