IFFI Goa 2015, Festival Diary, IV

At IFFI, the grand prizes are called the Golden Peacock and Silver Peacock, although India’s national bird is far from either golden or silver in colour, and the décor at the venue this year is derived from various shades of blue, including violet and purple. A total of 15 films have been short-listed in the International Competition Section, two of them India, both from the Eastern state of West Bengal.

Here’s the list:

1. 3000 NIGHTS

Directed by Mai Masri

A Palestine, France, Jordan, and Lebanon co-production: Arabic, Hebrew

2. EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

Ciro Guerra

Colombia,Venezuela, Argentina: Spanish , Portuguese , German, Catalan, Latin (Thank God for sub-titles) 

3. ENCLAVE

Goran Radovanovic

Serbia/Germany; Serbian

4. FILOSOFI KOPI

Angga Dwimas Sasongko

Indonesia: Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia, where Filosofi is, quite simply, Philosophy, and Kopi is coffee)

5. JOURNEY TO THE SHORE

Kiyoshi Kurosawa (absolutely not related to Akira Kurosawa)

Japan, France: Japanese

6. KAPO IN JERUSALEM

Uri Barbash

7. LABYRINTH OF LIES

Giulio Ricciarelli

Germany: German

8. EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO

Peter Greenaway

Netherlands/Mexico: English, Spanish

9. THE MAN WHO BECAME A HORSE

Amir-Hossein Saghafi

Iran: Farsi (Persian)

10. THE MEASURE OF A MAN (‘La loi du marche’ in original French, so the title has not been literally translated)

Stephane Brize

France: French

11. MUSTANG

Deniz Gamze Erguven

Turkey: Turkish

12. RAMS

Grimur Hakonarson

Iceland: Icelandic

13. SEALED CARGO

Julia Vargas

Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela: Spanish

14. NATOKER MOTO

Based on life of actress Late Kheya Chakroborty.

Debesh Chatterjee

India: Bengali

15. CINEMAWALA

An ode to the dying institution of the single-screen cinema theatres that have made way for digital multiplexes.

Kaushik Ganguly (2010 Silver Peacock winner for Arekti Premer Golpo, 2013 Best Director for Apur Panchali)

India: Bengali 

Assessing these films and picking the best of the lot will be a five-member jury, comprising:

i) Shekhar Kapur, India, director, Chairperson

ii) Michael Radford, UK, director

iii) Julia Jentsch, Germany, actress

iv) Suha Arraf, Israel based Palestinian filmmaker

v) Jeon Kyu-Hwan, South Korea, director