November 17: The pick of world cinema will be screened at the first non-governmental International Film Festival which will be held in Mumbai on November 24 to 30.The function of the festival, which will be held at the Y B Chavan Centre, will be inaugurated by Mrinal Sen, and presided over by Chief Minister Manohar Joshi. Also present will be Magasaysay award winner Mahasweta Devi, on whose novel is based Govind Nihalini's film Hazar Chaurasi Ma which will kick off the festival. The lifetime achievement award will be conferred on Dev Anand by the Mumbai Academy of Image (MAMI), which has organised the festival. Also to be feted is Adoor Gopalakrishnan, whose Kathapurushan will be screened.An important highlight of the World Cinema Section will be the screening of films made by Indians living abroad, informed Amol Palekar at a press conference. The package includes Sixth Happiness by Waris Hussain, The Journey by Harish Saluja, Monsoon by Jagmohan Mundra and Hyderabad Blues by Nagesh Kuknoor. These films are provided by the Smita Patil Foundation. The World Cinema will showcase 40 films from 22 countries. Some of them include Fifth Element, a film by French director Bresson Luc which opened the Cannes `97 festival, Michael Collins by Neil Jordan, In LOve And War by Richard Attenborough and Donnie Brasco by Mike Newell. One of the two retrospectives includes ten films by Pathe Cinema, which screened the first ever films in Mumbai in 1896. The other is a retro of films of the Italian neo-realistic film movement, including Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves and Roberto Roselini's Rome Open City and Paisan.The foreign film delegates attending the fete include Jan Nemec from the Czech Republic with his film Code Name Ruby, Park Kwang Su from South Korea with A Single Park, Tikoy Aguiluj from Phillipines with Rizal in Dapitan and Jorge Coscia from Argentine with Desperate Song.The festival will cost an estimated Rs 70 lakh, although a sponsor has been decided upon. The government has provided Rs 10 lakh from the Chief Minister's fund as well as its guest house and MLA Hostel for the foreign delegates. Efforts are on to book two suburban theatres to screen the films, since Shaan theatre had backed out at the last minute.
