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River to River. Florence Indian Film Festival: 4-10 December 2009 - Cinema Odeon - Piazza Strozzi, 1 -  Florence

The ninth River to River. Florence Indian Film Festival ended on Thursday, December 10th, and was a hit with the public and the press, with 3100 people coming to confirm the excellent idea of the 50 days of International Cinema in Florence and the beautiful historical Odeon cinema.

The selection of films in competition, the special sections and the retrospective devoted to Guru Dutt, the Indian Orson Welles of the Fifties, have been greatly received by both the audience and the press.

The partnerships with Museo Marino Marini for the exhibition on Raja Ravi Varma and Palazzo Tornabuoni for the Gala Dinner have been important side events of the festival, in addition to the workshops on music in Guru Dutt's films and gender issues in India with experts and lecturers of Indian studies.

Lots of guests attended to the festival: filmmakers Ketan Mehta, Raja Menon, Sooni Taraporevala, Sanjeev Sivan, Kartik Singh and Dev Khanna; actresses Nandana Sen and Iyanah Bativala, and screenwriter Shakir Kadri.

Other guests included the Indian Ambassador to Italy, Arif Shahid Khan, and the Culture Councillor of the Region Tuscany, Paolo Cocchi.

The winners of the River to River Digichannel Audience Award were announced in the evening:

• - feature films: the intense, evocative A Heaven on Earth by Deepa Mehta
• - short films: the poignant cartoon Topi by Arjun Rihan
• - documentary films: the interesting, shocking Children of God by Yi Seung-jun

A Heaven on Earth After the awards ceremony, the evening went on with the screening of the three winners of the Advantage India 3 minute Competition and the Closing Film, the hilarious cartoon Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley about the tragicomedy of Ramayana.

In January  the organisers of the River to River. Florence Indian Film Festival will start selecting the films for the 10th anniversary of the Festival which will be held in December 2010.

Full details will be published at http://www.rivertoriver.it/ in February 2010.