5th Jagran Film Festival Day 5 Closes On A High Note

by The Daily Eye Team September 27 2014, 3:00 pm Estimated Reading Time: 4 mins, 26 secs

~Special session with ace producers on ‘Investing in films’ interests aspiring film makers ~

~ Crème de la crème cinema lineup on Day 5 entertains, engages and amuses ~

Mumbai, 26th September, 2014: It has been five days that the 5^th Jagran Film Festival arrived in Mumbai, but the city’s cinema lovers continued to be spoilt for choices. A day filled with the daily dose of film screenings grew big and bigger in its appeal as the four screens of PVR Andheri and Cinemax Versova presented masterpieces from the world over coupled with special workshops to wow the movie buffs and aspiring movie makers alike.

The order of the day at PVR Andheri began with three Asian premieres in a row starting with Giovanni Veronisi’s 90 minute Italian film ‘A Woman As a Friend’, a slice of life relationship drama that deals with complexities of love, betrayal and jealousy. Next two premieres in line brought along a whiff of humor as ‘Revival’, a 115 minute Czech comedy of the summer by Director Alice Nellis, and Dick Tuinder’s ‘Farewell to the Moon’, a 94 minute comedy, engaged and amused the audience in equal measure. The day experimented with ‘thrill’ genre as the 123 minute biographical drama ‘Shahid’skillfully unfolded the life of a lawyer and human rights activist by the same name, followed by the 2010 Arabic period drama ‘Outside the Law’, set against the backdrop of Algerian war.

India’s bag of regional films opened with director K. R. Manoj’s 115 minute Malayalam film‘Kanyaka Talkies’ followed by director duo Deepti Kakkar’s and Fahad Mustafa’s 2014 film ‘Katiabaaz’ with a run time of 100 minutes. Manjeet Mann’s latest rom-com ‘Dil Vil Pyar Vyar’ added the Punjabi tadka to the middle order of regional films screenings of the day.

At Cinemax Versona, the action-packed afternoon commenced with a retrospective tribute to Patrice Chereau with his 1996 French film ‘Une Autre Solitude’. The golden era cinema lovers could pay their heartfelt tribute to Bimal Roy while watching his iconic drama ‘Madhumati’ that was arguably one of the earliest films on reincarnation. Also gracing the Day five lineup was a lesser known gem, director Ashok Sharan’s 2012 biopic‘Ulgulan – Ek Kranti’. The film presents real life triumphs and tribulations of freedom fighter Birsa Munda’s life. A spotlight on Cyprus cinema brought to surface cinematic output of directors Adonis Floridis and Theodoros Nikolaidis in the form of the 90 minute 2002 film ‘Kalabush’.

A session on ‘Investing in Films: A Losing Venture or A Viable Option’ turned out to be an engaging tete-a-tete with production and distribution stalwarts Vivek Rangachari from DAR Motion Pictures, Utpal Acharya of Reliance Entertainment and T P Aggrawal from Star Entertainment who offered insights on the risk and return equation behind every film venture. As sun began to set, ‘Meet the Director’ got cine buffs up, close and personal with two renowned film makers, Marathi director Rajendra Talak and actor turned director Sandeep Verma of the biopic ‘Manjunath’ fame.

Present at the ‘Finding Spaces in Film Festivals’ workshop as panelists were eminent international film festival personalities, Manoj Srivastava, a consultant to Jagran Film Festival and formerly associated with International Film Festival of India, Kuldip Sinha, Former Director, Mumbai International Film Festival, Iokim Milonas from Cyprus International Film Festival and Phillip Cheah from Dubai International Film Festival, who offered an erudite mix of inputs on how to make the most out of film festivals and find a place there.

Besides the full length feature films, many cine goers especially came from all corners of the city to watch ‘Jagran Shorts’. The short films’ lineup spanned Shivangi Jain’s 8 minute short film ‘The Thief’ along with Niladri Chatterjee’s 22 minute Bengali film ‘Grrr… (The Roar)’, Taiwanese director Chiang Chung-Chieh’s 30 minute short film ‘Panacea’and Vijayeta Kumar’s 20 minute Hindi film ‘Blouse’.

Studded with captivating cinematic works from the world over, Day five struck a chord with the city’s cine buffs, who, after exploring the lineup of first five days were still yearning for more. The 5^th edition of the Jagran Film Festival, Mumbai 2014 is taking place at PVR Andheri West and Cinemax Versova from the 22^nd – 28^th September, 2014. With two more days at hand to disseminate world cinema, the festival which is pertinently woven around the ‘world peace’ theme reached a wide spectrum of film enthusiasts. The majestic seven day film extravaganza continues to showcase cinematic excellence from all corners of the world across categories such as feature films, short films, retrospectives, country focus et al, besides organizing master classes, workshops and sessions involving film industry stalwarts.