River to River. Florence Indian Film Festival
Florence, Italy, 3-9 December 2010
Odeon cinema - Piazza Strozzi 1
Spazio Uno cinema - Via del Sole 10




River to River. Florence Indian Film Festival celebrates its 10th edition with a tribute and a photographic exhibition on multi-award winner and celebrated director Satyajit Ray, in addition to the films in competition and special screenings.

The 10th River to River. Florence Indian Film Festival, founded and directed by Selvaggia Velo, will take place in Florence, Italy, from 3rd to 9th December, 2010, under the Patronage of the Embassy of India in Rome and the aegis of Fondazione Sistema Toscana-Mediateca Regionale, as part of Cinquanta Giorni di Cinema Internazionale a Firenze.

To celebrate its 10th anniversary, River to River. Florence Indian Film Festival will be doubling up its venues: in addition to the main one at Odeon cinema, the Festival will also take place at Spazio Uno cinema, which had been it’s venue from 2002 to 2006.

Odeon will host the Opening and Closing Films - two major films, both by Aparna Sen - the films in competition, the retrospective devoted to the great Bengali director Satyajit Ray (1921-1992) and the special screenings not in competing, as well as Q&As with guest directors and actors, and the morning talks on India and its cinema.
All the films that won the River to River Digichannel Audience Award during the earlier nine editions of the Festival will be screened at Spazio Uno, with Q&As with some of their actors and filmmakers.

In addition, the Animation Studio Eeksaurus Productions of Mumbai will produce a short film to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Festival.


ODEON CINEMA
Opening night and Opening Film
The Opening Night of the tenth edition of the Festival will take place on Friday, December 3rd, at 6.00 pm, at Museo Marino Marini in Florence, which will celebrate the tribute to Satyajit Ray with an amazing photographic exhibition on Nemai Ghosh, Ray’s photo-biographer, who will be in Florence to present of his work. The exhibition is organised with the support of Indian Council for Cultural Relations of New Delhi.
Then, at 8.00 pm, Cinema Odeon will host the official Opening Ceremony of the Festival with the European preview of the Opening Film Iti Mrinalini, the latest masterpiece by acclaimed Bengali director Aparna Sen. Iti Mrinalini (Un Unfinished Letter) is the gripping story of Mrinalini, a famous actress telling about her own life of lost and re-found love, anguish and happy times, success and failure. The film is masterly played by the director and her daughter Konkona Sen Sharma.
Director Aparna Sen will meet the audience after the film.

The retrospective
This year the Festival will hold a retrospective on the multi-award-winner director Satyajit Ray (1921-1992). In collaboration with the Directorate of Film Festivals of New Delhi, the National Film Archive of India in Pune and the National Film Development Corporation of Mumbai, four masterpieces of the Bengali director will be screened at the Festival:
• Jalsaghar (The Music Room), 1958. Set in the Thirties, the film tells the passing and the changing of times through the eyes of a music-loving Zamindar.
• Charulata (The Lonely Wife), 1964. From a novel by Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the Berlin Silver Bear for Best Director in 1965, this is the story of Charu, a woman living in Calcutta in the late XIX century in a privileged condition but in deep loneliness.
• Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest), 1969. A stellar cast - including Soumitra Chatterjee, Aparna Sen and Sharmila Tagore - for an elegant comedy which wittily explores the lifestyle of the Indian middle-class, with extremely modern female figures.
• Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players), 1977. Set in Lucknow one year before the Indian Mutiny of 1857, it tells about a game of chess between two lords while the British Army is marching into town. This has been Ray’s most expensive film and is a reflection about the circumstances that led to the colonisation of India by the British. The cast includes Sir Richard Attenborough.

The latest Indian productions - feature films, short films and documentaries - which include Italian and European premieres, with Q&As with the filmmakers and actors - will be in competition for the River to River Digichannel Audience Award.
Furthermore, there will also be special screenings out of competition such as animations, student films, a new section of music videos and the 3rd edition of Advantage India, the 3-minute short film competition, of which the winning films will be screened on the closing night of the Festival, in collaboration with 1takemedia.com.

Closing Film
The Closing Film of Festival, the Italian premiere The Japanese Wife directed by Aparna Sen and played by Rahul Bose, who will both meet the audience after the film, will be screened on Thursday, December 9th, at 9.00 pm. Based on Kunal Basu’s novel of the same name, this film tells the story of a teacher in an Indian village who marries a Japanese girl he met by correspondence. A poetic tribute to love which defies rules and convention.



SPAZIO UNO CINEMA
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Festival, this cinema will be the venue for seeing all the films - including feature films, short firms and documentaries - which won the River to River Digichannel Audience Award in the past nine years, introduced by some of their directors and actors.














SIDE EVENTS AND MORNING SCREENING
• Saturday 4 December at 11.30 am- Odeon cinema
Talk - free entrance
Indian cinema and globalisation
Speakers: Carlo Camarda, Indian tourism expert; Stefania Ippoliti, responsible FST; Marco Restelli, journalist and indologist.

• Sunday 5 December at 10.30 am - Odeon cinema
Screening of Jalsaghar (The Music Room) by Satyajit Ray
After the film, conversation-concert: In the music room: reflections on Hindu musical tradition and Indian cinema, with Riccardo Battaglia, musician (sarod) and professor of Indian music at conservatory A. Pedrollo di Vicenza; Ciro Montanari, musician (tabla); Paolo Scarnecchia, musicologist and professor of History of Music- University of Naples L'Orientale.

• Wednesday 8 December at 11.30 am - Odeon cinema
Talk - free entrance
Maximum cities, minimum dwellings
Speakers: Franco La Cecla, anthropologist and philosopher - EPFL di Losanna; Claudia Roselli, University of Firenze - School of Planning and Architecture of Nuova Delhi; Stefania Rössl, researcher and professor of Architectonic Composition - Architecture, University of Bologna.


River to River. Florence Indian Film Festival is organised with the sponsorship of Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali-Direzione Cinema, Regione Toscana and Fondazione Sistema Toscana-Film Commission, Consiglio Regionale della Toscana and Assessorato alla Cultura del Comune di Firenze, Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze along with OAC and the National Indian Tourism Office of Milan, with the invaluable support of Angela Caputi Giuggiù, Apt Firenze, Hotel Roma, Hotel River, Klopman, Instyle and Swiss International Air Lines, in collaboration with CTS and Deaphoto.

CTS and Isic membership card-holders, as well as Arci, Controradio, Coop, Carta Giovani and Mymovies membership card-holders, will get a discount on the daily tickets.

Industry, press and cultural accreditations are open until November 15th, and can be filled in online from the accreditations section of the Festival website.
Last minute accreditations will be possible during the Festival week.

Fiesole’s India Restaurant will be there all through the Festival, in collaboration with Odeon Bistro, for great tastings of fantastic Maharaja food.

www.rivertoriver.it