The 12th edition of Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes), starting from February 26, will showcase films from The Philippines, Germany and Australia, as well as those that portray Indian music tradition. It will also feature retrospectives of Russian auteur Andrei Tarkovsky and multilingual actor Anant Nag and will also screen a biopic of the former.
As 2020 also marks 125 years of the birth of cinema, several world classics by the likes of Ingmar Bergman, Charlie Chaplin, Akira Kurasowa, Buster Keaton, Sergei Eisensteinm, Vittorio De Sica, Jean Luc Goddard, and Satyajit Ray, among others, will also be shown.
“The festival will screen over 200 films from over 60 countries with competitions in the Asian, the Indian, and the Kannada sections. The films selected for the competitions will be announced by February 15,” said Sunil Puranik, chairperson, Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy.
While the opening ceremony will be held at the Kanteerava Indoor Stadium on February 26 evening, the chief guest is yet to be finalised. The closing ceremony will be held at Banquet Hall, Vidhana Soudha, on March 4 evening.
Apart from Orion Mall in Rajajinagar, films will also be screened at three other locations in the city this year – Navarang Theatre, also in Rajajinagar, Suchitra Film Society in Banashankari, and Kalavidara Sangha in Chamarajapet.
However, all interactions with filmmakers and workshops will take place only at Orion Mall, where films will be screened in 11 screens.
Registration of delegates will be online only and registration can be done on bookmyshow.com, the official partner of BIFFes. The process began from Wednesday.
The delegate pass costs ₹800 for the public and ₹400 for students, film society members, senior citizens and for those from the film fraternity.
Identity cards will be issued at the academy office in Nandini Layout, Information Department on Infantry Road, and the Suchitra Film Society in Banashankari from February 22.
Mr. Puranik also announced that the Karnataka Film Directors’ Association is hosting a Directors’ Film Bazaar. But the programmes listed under the bazaar are workshops for filmmakers and not designed as a platform to help sell films or find producers.
“This is an attempt at preparing Kannada filmmakers for the global market,” said N. Vidyashankar, artistic director, BIFFes. Claire Dobbin, Script Advisor/Editor from Australia will hold a script lab.
BIFFes seeks international recognition
The Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy has begun taking steps to get BIFFes internationally recognised, said its artistic director N Vidyashankar.
“Film festivals across the world are given accreditation by the International Federation of Film Producers’ Associations. We recently held meetings with their representatives at the Cannes Film Festival and have made an application seeking accreditation. Florence Girot, Director of Film Festivals at the Federation from France is visiting the Festival this year as one of the foreign delegates,” Mr. Vidyashankar explained.
Meanwhile, chairperson of the Academy, Sunil Puranik said he was keen to establish a film festival directorate within the academy, a longstanding demand for better organising of the festival.
“The key to getting international recognition is consistency in the calendar. We will try to announce the calendar of the next edition of the festival on the last day of this edition,” he said.