Kabir Khan, Ketan Mehta, Zeishan Quadri and many others grace Day 5 of the Jagran Film Festival
The magnanimous 6th edition of India’s largest travelling film festival; ‘Jagran Film Festival’ is turning out to be a much-awaited treat for cine lovers of Mumbai. With screenings, sessions and some sensational short films, Day 5 wrapped up on a high note at the Fun Cinemas.
Directors and actors such as Kabir Khan, Bhumi Pednekar, Ketan Mehta, Zeishan Quadri and many others graced Day 5 of the Jagran Film Festival. The day began with a film flavor of the west, Alexander Payne’s George Clooney starrer 2011 American drama ‘The Descendants’ under the Country Focus segment. World Panorama brought to life some shades of European cinema with films such as Jon Garaño’s 2015 touching Spanish drama ‘Loreak’ meaning ‘flowers’, Sergio Castro San Martín’s 2015 Spanish drama on women oppression ‘The Mud Woman’, Juanfer Andrés and Esteban Roel’s 2014 Spanish thriller ‘Shrew’s Nest’, Vera Glagoleva’s 2014 Russian costume drama ‘The Two Women’ and Pawel Pawlikowski’s 2014 Oscar winning Polish drama ‘Ida’.
Cine-lovers already dipped in the October 2nd holiday vibe, loved the early morning dose of happiness with Rajkumar Hirani’s 2009 coming of age comedy-drama film ‘3 Idiots’ and Vijay Anand’s epic romantic drama from the golden era ‘Guide’ (Courtesy: Navketan Films) in the Happiness category. On one hand Sudhendu Roy’s Bollywood film ‘Saudagar’ took cinema fans back to the 70s; on the other hand, Vishal Bhardwaj’s 2006 Indian crime drama film adapted from Shakespeare's Othello, ‘Omkara’ and Jean-Luc Godard’s 1987 cinematic adaptation of the Shakespeare play of the same title,‘King Lear’proved that adaptations of classics remain popular and timeless.
Day 5’s Indian Showcase turned out to be a perfect show time of recent films with Arup Manna’s 2015 Assamese film about a child struggling to cope with the present day school curriculum, ‘Aarohi’, Sriram Raghavan’s 2015 action crime drama ‘Badlapur’,Sharat Katariya’s Hindi rom-com ‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’ and M Manikandan’s National award winning debut Tamil film ‘Kaakkaa Muttai (Crow’s Egg)’. As the evening set in, Shyam Benegal’s ‘Bhumika’ that presents the memoirs of a well-known Marathi stage actress of the 1940s, amassed a suite of discerning cine-goers under the Director’s special category.
The two afternoon sessions, ‘Meet The Directors’ that saw Sanjay Puram Singh Chauhan, Rajiv Bhatia & Shiladitya Moulik and ‘The Return Of The Mahatma Directors’ Speak’ at Prithvi Theatre brought panelists like Darshan Jariwala, Surendra Rajan, Avijit Dutt, in conversation with renowned screenwriter Atul Tiwari, took those curious about film making into the backstage world of films. Later in the evening there was yet another session on the same subject with renowned film director Ketan Mehta& one of the country’s foremost screen writer, costume designer and researcher Shama Zaidi.
Day 5 touched a new high when it presented some handpicked films in its signature and much awaited Top Shorts category. The lineup included TiborBànòczki’s and SaroltaSzabo's French animated film ‘Leftover’, Korean films ‘Hossana’ directed by Na Young-Kil'’s and ‘Minsu Kim In Wonderland’ directed by SHIM Chan-yang, DouweDijkstra’s Dutch film ‘Démontable’, GhazalehSoltani’s Persian film ‘Futile Garden’, PhurbaTshering Lama’s Nepali film ‘The Beaten Path’ and AnaïsRuales’ French film ‘Burundanga’.
Jagran Shorts section matched up to engage with short doses of Hindi films and showcased Hir Kumar’s‘Mohtana (Compensation)’,SoumyaDe’s‘Gift’,SubhajitDasgupta’s‘Chimes’,NitinTrivedi’s‘Lost’, a quick shade of cinema from Isreal with Tal Oved‘s‘Ziva And Amal’and an offbeat sans dialogue film ‘Metamorphosis’directed by Kamlesh Kumar.