Ottaal (Jayaraaj) Official Section

Ottaal
Jayaraaj
India. 2014. 80 min
Cast : Shine Tom Chacko, Ashanth K. Shah, Vasudevan

Venue :  Casa Asia
Date :  27 may. 19.30h

Ottaal (The Trap) is an adaptation of one of Anton Chekhov’s timeless works, Vanka. A story of the 18th century, but one that has travelled the time and space to be retold in the present day at a small village in the South of India. Kuttappayi, a young boy, is miserable and desperate as he starts writing a letter to his grandfather from a place, dim and dark. Kuttappayi’s recollections takes us to the picturesque locations of Kuttanad, where Kuttappayi and his grandpa, Valiyappachayi, are arriving with their ducks. The village is as pleasant as it can be even though what brings him there is the death of his dearest parents. With hope and freedom, he is about to start his life afresh among the village’s letterless postman, the nameless dog, the rich lad, Tintu and many more.

Island City (Ruchika Oberoi) Official Section

Island City
Ruchika Oberoi
India. 2015. 108 min.
Cast : Tanishta Chatterjee, Ashwin Mushran, Vinay Pathak

Venue :  Filmoteca Española
Date : 20 may.  20.30h

Island City is a film in three parts. Suyash wins the office ‘Fun Committee Award’, entitling him to a whole day of fun at the mall. However, things go wrong and he ends up doing a horrendous, unthinkable thing. It does turn out to be a fun day for Suyash after all! Anil is on life support. His devastated family decides to bring home that object banned from the house – the TV. The family now, each night, plugs into the popular soap ‘Purshottam – The Ideal Man’, and gradually begins to replace the domineering Anil with this fictional paragon. Suddenly then, comes the news that Anil’s condition is improving and that he will be home soon!

V.K. MURTHY (A great man behind the camera)

Venkatarama Pandit Krishnamurthy (26 November 1923 – 7 April 2014) was an Indian cinematographer. Murthy, a one-time violinist and jailed freedom fighter, was Guru Dutt’s regular cameraman on his movies. He provided some of Indian cinema’s most notable images in starkly contrasted black and white. He also shot India’s first cinemascope film, Kaagaz Ke Phool. For his contribution to film industry, particularly Indian film industry he was awarded the IIFA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. On 19 January 2010, he was honored with the Dada Saheb Phalke Award for 2008 with Sathvika Samineni.

Murthy began his career in films with Maharana Prathap. He worked as an assistant to cinematographer V. Ratra in the 1951 film Baazi which was Guru Dutt’s first as a director. Dutt, impressed by Murthy’s smooth and fluid captures with the camera, took him on for his next film Jaal (1952), which was Murthy’s first film as a chief cinematographer. Murthy, then became a part of the Guru Dutt team, till the latter’s death in 1964.

In 1959 came Guru Dutt’s Kaagaz Ke Phool, a film critically acclaimed as one of the director’s best. More than anything else, it won many accolades for its cinematography and created unparalleled history in the field. V. K. Murthy, as the cinematographer won widespread praise and received the Filmfare Award for Best Cinematographer. He repeated the feat with Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam winning the award again in 1962. He worked exclusively with Dutt until the director’s death. Some of Murthy’s best work came in Guru Dutt’s movies like Pyaasa, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam and Aar Paar. Following Dutt’s death, Murthy worked with Kamal Amrohi on his masterpiece, Pakeezah and Razia Sultan. Post Guru Dutt, he like many of the director’s team was not able to give any pinnacle work. In later years, he worked with directors like Pramod Chakravarthy (Naya Zamana, Jugnu), Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani (Tamas).

Murthy was also the cinematographer for one of the most acclaimed Kannada film Hoovu Hannu, a directorial production of Rajendra Singh Babu and also appeared in that film in a role. Murthy was also the principal cinematographer of the widely acclaimed television series produced by Doordarshan and directed by Shyam Benegal, Bharat Ek Khoj.

AWARDS

—  Filmfare Best Cinematographer Award – Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959)
— Filmfare Best Cinematographer Award – Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962)
—  IIFA Lifetime Achievement Award – Amsterdam, 2005.
—  Dada Saheb Phalke Award for 2008

Complete Film List 2020

OFFICIAL  SECTION

For Sama (Waad Al-Khateab, Edward Watts)  Great Britain

Shindisi (Dito Tsintsadze)  Georgia

Aamis (Bhaskar Hazarika)  India

Biriyaani (Sajin Babu)  India

Gamak Ghar (Achal Mishra)  India

Sir (Rohena Gera)  India

Kadakh (Rajat Kapoor)  India

Castle of Dreams (Reza Mirkarimi)  Iran

A Dark Dark Man (Adilkhan Yerzhanov)  Kazakhstan

Aga,s House (Lendita Zeqiraj)  Kosovo

Summer Survivors (Marija Kavtaradze)  Lithuania

Isaac (Jurgis Matulevicius)  Lithuania

Boluomi (Vera Chen, Kek Huat Lau)  Malaysia, Taiwan

Brotherhood (Pavel Lungin)  Russia

Move The Grave (Seung-O Jeong)  South Korea

The Hive (Eylem Kaftan)  Turkey

One Man Dies a Million Times (Jessica Oreck)  USA

DOCUMENTARIES

Sisters of The Trees (Camila Menéndez / Lucas Peñafort) Argentina

River Silence (Rogério Soares) Canada

7 Veils (Sepideh Farsi)  France

Murghab (Daler Kaziev, Martin Saxer, Marlen Elders)  Germany

Mosley (Michael Shevloff)  Great Britain

For Sama (Waad Al-Khateab, Edward Watts)  Great Britain

Mullah,s Daughter (Hassan Solhjoo, Mahdieh Sadat)  Great Britain

Moti Bagh (Nirmal Chander)  India (PSBT)

Prison Diaries (Uma Chakravarti)  India (PSBT)

Sharmila Tagore (Umang Sabarwal)  India (PSBT)

The Geshema is Born (Malati Rao)  India (PSBT)

Missing Days (Ekta Mittal)  India (PSBT)

A Foreigner in my Own Land (Nishajyoti Sharma)  India  (TISS)

Saroj Dutta and His Times (Kasturi Basu, Mitali Biswas)  India

Kaifinama (Sumantra Ghosal)  India

Objector (Molly Stuart)  Israel

Sea is Shaking (Nikita Tuzov)  Russia

Khutsiev, Action Starts (Peter Shepotinnik)  Russia

The Abode. Who are we? (Eleonora Tukhareli)  Russia

Behind India, a look through their social movements (Fernando Vera)  Spain

King of Beasts (Tomer Almagor, Nadav Harel)  USA

SHORT FILMS

The Diver (Michael Leonard, Jamie Helmer)  Australia

Troll Bridge (Daniel Knight)  Australia

Precious (Irfan Avdic)  Bosnia Herzegovina

She Runs (Qiu Yang)  China

Mama (Vladimir Kott)  Estonia

We are the Rovers (Antonin Michaud Soret)  France

The Egg and the Thieving Pie (Lola B. Higgins)  Great Britain

Vader (Isabel Lamberti)  Holland

Ellipsis (Raunaq Das, Abhirup Halder)  India

Hope (Partha Sarathi Manna)  India

The Talking Plow (Jayaraj)  India

Kamali (Sasha Rainbow)  Great Britain, India

The Song we Sang (Aarti Neharsh)  India

Motherhood (Kirti Singh) SRFTI. India

Meal (Abhiroop Basu)  India

U for Usha (Rohan Kanawade)  India

Steam (Harsh Hudda)  India

Sunny Side Upar (Vijayeta Kumar)  India

Aapke Aa Jane Se (Shiladitya Bora)  India

Nooreh (Ashish Pandey)  India

Halwa (Gayatri Bajpai / Nirav Bhakta)  India

Metamorphosis (Rajdeep Paul / Sarmistha Maiti)  India

Miss Man (Tathagata Ghosh)  India

Driving Lessons (Marziyeh Riahi)  Iran

Dog (Hesam Salehbeig) Iran

Still (Anis Naseri) Iran

Her Wish (Yukiko Mishima)  Japan

Give Up The Ghost (Zain Duraie)  Jordan

Mother (Aleksandr Myskin)  Russia

Dummy (Nikita Vlasov)  Russia

Bagatelle (Daniel Levin)  Russia, USA

Window (Evgeniy Milykh)  Russia

Mthunzi (Tebogo Malebogo)  South Africa

Women at Sunset (Nuria Rubió Domingo)  Spain

Get Ready With Me (Jonatan Etzler)  Sweden

Stay Awake, Be Ready (Pham Thien An)  Vietnam

CLASSICS

My Life With Satyajit Ray (Bo Van Der Werf)  Belgium

The Unvanquished (Satyajit Ray)  India

The Music Room (Satyait Ray)  India

The Witness (Peter Vacso)  Hungary

It was in May (Marlen Khutsiev)  Russia

MARLEN KHUTSIEV

Khutsiev, Action Starts (Peter Shepotinnik)  Russia

It was in May (Marlen Khutsiev)  Russia

JERZY SKOLIMOWSKI

Hands Up! (Jerzy Skolimowski)  Poland

Identification Marks: None (Jerzy Skolimowski)  Poland

Walkover (Jerzy Skolimowski)  Poland

Success is the Best Revenge (Jerzy Skolimowski)  Poland

CINEMA OF ASSAM

A Foreigner in my Own Land (Nishajyoti Sharma)  India

In The Land of Poison Women (Manju Borah)  India

Song of the Horned Owl (Manju Borah)  India

A Silent Way (Manju Borah)  India

Aamis (Bhaskar Hazarika)  India

Kothanodi (Bhaskar Hazarika)  India

Tales From Our Childhood (Mukul Haloi)  India

INVITED COUNTRY PORTUGAL

3 Years Later (Marco Amaral)

Amor, Avenidas Novas (Duarte Coimbra)

Nyo Vweta Nafta (Ico Costa)

In Case of Fire  (Tomás Paula Marques)

These are My Hands  (André Miguel Ferreira)

The Hissing of Summer Sands  (Catarina Mourão)

Look No Further (André Marques)

Holy Family (Margarida Lucas)

MIGRATIONS

Trijya (Akshay Indikar)  India

Khanaur (Gurvinder Singh)  India

A Foreigner in my Own Land (Nishajyoti Sharma)  India  (TISS)

Boluomi (Vera Chen, Kek Huat Lau)  Malaysia, Taiwan

Omar and Us (Maryna Er Gorbach, Mehmet Bahadir Er)  Turkey

The Abode. Who are we? (Eleonora Tukhareli)  Russia

LIFE

Spring Follows Winter (Liu Junfeng)  China

Mullah,s Daughter (Hassan Solhjou)  Great Britain

Chronicle of Space (Aksay Indikar)  India

Ee, Ma, Yau (Lijo Jose Pellissery)  India

Josef – Born in Grace (Susant Misra)  India

Lihaaf (Rahat Kazmi)  India

Raudram 2018 (Jayaraj)  India

Kaifinama (Sumantra Ghosal)  India

The Sky is Partly Cloudy (Joydeep Mukherjee)  India

Old Men Never Die (Reza Jamali)  Iran

Asfixia (Kenya Márquez)  Mexico

Kilkis, the Town of Owls (Azlarabe Alaoui)  Morocco

Deer (Koldo Almandoz)  Spain

Asandhimitta (Asoka Handagama)  Srilanka

LOVE

My Life With Satyajit Ray (Bo Van Der Werf)  Belgium

Odd Couple (Prashant Johari)  India

Sniffer (Buddhadeb Dasgupta)  India

Song of the Horned Owl (Manju Borah)  India

Aamis (Bhaskar Hazarika)  India

Rickshawala (Ram Kamal Mukherjee)  India

A Man Without Shadow (Alireza Raisian) Iran

Castle of Dreams (Reza Mirkarimi)  Iran

The Warden (Nima Javidi)  Iran

Guardian of the Light (Yermek Tursunov)  Kazakhstan

NATURE

Sisters of The Trees (Camila Menéndez)  Argentina

River Silence (Rogerio Soares)  Brazil

We are the Rovers (Antonin Michaud Soret)  France

Echilibru (Eve Cerubini, Victor Jullien, Jerome Fatalot)  France

Murghab (Daler Kaziev, Martin Saxer, Marlen Elders)  Germany

Moti Bagh (Nirmal Chander)  India (PSBT)

King of Beasts (Tomer Almagor, Nadav Harel)  Israel

Sea is Shaking (Nikita Tuzov)  Russia

PSBT

Moti Bagh (Nirmal Chander)  India

Prison Diaries (Uma Chakravarti)  India

Sharmila Tagore (Umang Sabarwal)  India

The Geshema is Born (Malati Rao)  India

Missing Days (Ekta Mittal)  India

FAMU FILM SCHOOL

Home Sleep Home (Adam Koloman Rybanský)

128 Thousand (Ondřej Erban)

Plus One (Myroslava Klochko)

Sugar (Tereza Vejvodová)

Julie and the Demon of the Night (Jan Vondrácek)

The Night of the Agama (Tomáš Janáček)

LONDON FILM SCHOOL

The Binoculars (Rahul Sharma)  Great Britain

10 x 10 Feet (Dhruv Tripathi)  Great Britain

Still Rolling: The DDLJ Story (Natashja Rathore)  Great Britain

VIACOM 18 STUDIOS

Bouma (Debatma Mandal)  India

Maya (Vikas Chandra)  India

Red Velvet (Diksha Jyote Routray)  India

Ishq Ki Googly (Neeraj Udhwani)  India

Teaspoon (Aban Bharucha Deohans)  India

Aun (T S Prasanna)  India

Joyride (Fardeen Khan)  India

Documentaries

The Art of Adventure (Alison Reid) Canada

Far from Home (Kristi Tethong) Canada, India

Painted Memories (Jaydip Mukherjee) India

Maroun Returns to Beirut (Feyrouz Serhal) Lebanon

Child Of Dust (Weronika Miliczewska) Poland

The Last Expedition (Eliza Kubarska) Poland

First Frames (Ilie Mitaru) Turkey / USA

Searching for The Band (Musa AK, Hasan Basri Ozdemir) Turkey

Champions of the Golden Valley (Ben Sturgulewsky) USA

The Great White Whale (Michael Dillon) Australia———————-Deep in the wild Southern Ocean, halfway between Australia and South Africa, a snowy volcano, nine thousand feet high, rears up from the sea like a great white whale. Five times it tried to kill the first team that attempted to climb it. Yet in 1964, back they sailed.

Jacques (Lysandre Leduc Boudreau) Canada———————————–For over forty years, Jacques Duhoux, expedition pioneer in northern Quebec, has lived alone in the Uapishka (Groulx) Mountains. Now at 85 years old, he continues to live off the grid, despite the inevitable decline that comes with age.

What will People Say (Rafina Khatun) India ———————————Gulnaaz remains committed to using community radio to shed light on injustices and oppressions faced by marginalised communities, despite constant scrutiny and control by her family and community.

Cinema Pe Cinema (Vani Subramanian) India ———————————For some of us, India’s single screen cinemas are a glorious architectural and cultural legacy to be celebrated, preserved and cherished. For others, they remain a place still frequented to see the movies. Yet others lament their widespread demise

Here Children Dont Play Together (Mohsen Makhmalbaf) Iran ——–Is a portrait of people in Jerusalem whose survival is in question on a daily basis. In the heat of the war, the film pictures those Ordinary Palestinians and Israelis who are still in search of peace and coexistence between Muslims and Jews. Ali, who was released from Israeli prison after eighteen years and works as a tourist guide in the market, is one of these people.

Hidden Era (Carlos Vargas) Mozambique, Germany, Colombia———Feature narrative “Hidden Era” unfolds in the vibrant city of Maputo, where Rastafari artist Phambi grapples with securing his son’s education amidst the rhythmic beats of Mozambique. Perennially on the brink of expulsion due to payment delays, Phambi’s artistic journey becomes a compelling narrative.

Of Caravans and The Dogs (Askold Kurov, Anonymous 1) Germany –Putin had been preparing his country for the big war long before it started. Since 2012, a series of repressive laws were passed by the Government labelling everyone who publicly disagreed with the official narrative as “foreign agent”, a traitor of Russia. In these circumstances…

Maroun Returns to Beirut (Feyrouz Serhal) Lebanon —————– 2023 marked the thirtieth anniversary of Maroun Baghdadi’s sudden and tragic death. Maroun was a Lebanese filmmaker who wrote and directed films during the Lebanese civil war and contributed to documentary and fiction filmmaking from 1973 up until his death in 1993.

I Love You More (Nour Alkheder) Nederland ——————————Nour’s journey to recognition of her longing for her father and Syria, where she confronts loss and the emotional impact of absence.

Whispering Walls (Eylem Kaftan) Turkey ——————————–Whispering Walls is a creative, cinematic, and artistic meditation on a Turkish artist in New York in 1960’s trying to navigate his way in a complicated time in American history when people were out on the streets for civil rights and when art was a true act of struggle expressing itself in the most intense way on street walls.

The Forest in Me (Rebecca E. Marshall) UK ———————————-Epic forests of the Siberian Taiga and black lava landscapes of a Hawaiian volcano are woven through this quietly powerful film that opens out from a personal story about living with uncertainty, to reflect upon possibilities of love and human connection.

First Frames (Ilie Mitaru) Turkey / USA—————————————–First Frames follows photographer and Syrian refugee Serbest Salih and his mobile darkroom that brings photography education to overlooked communities across Turkey, where children contend with access to school, memory and displacement from devastating earthquakes.

My Name is Gulpilil (Molly Reynolds) Australia

Raise me a Memory (Varun Trikha) Estonia

Under Construction (Markus Toivo) Finland

The Empty Grave (Agnes Lisa Wegner/Cece Mlay) Germany, Tanzania

Keeping the Music Alive (Sarah El Younsi, Mandakini Gahlot) France, Singapore

Bye Bye Tiberias (Lina Soualem) France, Palestine

Mother and Daughter (Lana Gogoberidze) Georgia/France

And Towards Happy Alleys (Sreemoyee Singh) India

New Girl in the City (Aakriti Thatal, Ashutosh Mishra, Asmita Srivastava) India

The List (Hana Makhmalbaf) Iran

A Boy Called Piano (Nina Nawalowalo) New Zealand

Postcards from the Verge (Natalia Koniarz) Poland

The Alquimist´s Dance (Arantxa Vela Buendía) Spain

Les Praeres (Iván Menéndez) Spain

This is not a Pearl (Tharindu Ramanayaka) Sri Lanka

Films selected for Imagineindia 2023

Bangla Surf Girls (Elizabeth D Costa) Canada, Bangladesh

And Still I Sing (Fazila Amiri) Canada

To Kill a Tiger (Nisha Pahuja) Canada

Under the Sky of Damascus (Heba Khaled, Talal Derki, Ali Wajeeh) Denmark

Laughing in Afghanistan (Anneta Papathanassiou) Greece

Women Beyond Bollywood (Rahila Bootwala) India

Go, Friend, Go (Gabriele Licchelli, Francesco Lorusso, Andrea Settembrini) Italy

Mom (Xun Sero) Mexico

Journey to the Sun (Susana de Sousa, Ansgar Schaefer) Portugal

Detached (Vladimir Krivov) Russia

All of Our Heartbeats are Connected through Exploding Stars (Jennifer Rainsford) Sweden

Films selected for Imagineindia 2022

Babenco: Tell Me When I Die (Barbara Paz) Brazil

February, 1st (Leila Macaire, Mo Mo) Burma, France

Reconstruction of Occupation (Jan Sikl) Czech Republic, Slovakia

La Vie est dans le Pré (Eric Guéret) France

Libya, No Escape from Hell (Sara Creta) France

As I Want (Samaher Alqadi) Egypt, France

Breaking the Silence (Isabelle Vang, Pawel Lisiak) France

Remembering Mashi (Marco Hüsler) Germany

My Childhood My Country (Phil Grabsky, Shoaib Sharifi) Great Britain

Indian Space Dreams (Sue Sudbury) Great Britain

May You Stay Forever Young (Rex Ren, Lam Sum) Hong Kong

Once Upon a Village (Srishti Lakhera) India

Kekee Manzil (Behroze Gandhy, Dilesh Korya) India

Ushiku (Thomas Ash) Japan

Life in 24 Frames A Second (Tiong Guan Saw) Malaysia

Golden Fish, African Fish (Thomas Grand, Moussa Diop) Senegal

Kitab (Xavi Herrero) Spain

Bitter Sweet (Didem Sahin) Turkey

Incomplete Sentences (Adar Bozbay) Turkey

Films selected for Imagineindia 2021

Borderlands (Samarth Mahajan) India

Saroj Dutta and His Times (Kasturi Basu, Mitali Biswas)  India

Testimony of Ana (Sachin Dheeraj) India

Life Among War Flags (Mohsen Eslamzadeh) Iran

The Marriage Project (Atiye Attarzadeh/Hesam Eslami) Iran

A Fish Tale (Emmanuelle Mayer) Israel

An Island in the Continent (Juan Pablo Miquirray) Mexico

Zumiriki (Óskar Alegría) Spain

Radio Silence (Juliana Fanjul) Switzerland, Mexico

Khutsiev, Action Starts (Peter Shepotinnik)  Russia

Shaman (Andrey Osipov) Russia

Reboiras, Action and Heart (Alberte Mera) Spain

Accept The Call (Eunice Lau) USA

Gloves Off (Nadine Natour, Ugonna Okpalaoka) USA

Radical Love (William Kirkley) USA

Films selected for Imagineindia 2020

Sisters of The Trees (Camila Menéndez / Lucas Peñafort) Argentina

River Silence (Rogério Soares) Canada

7 Veils (Sepideh Farsi)  France

Murghab (Daler Kaziev, Martin Saxer, Marlen Elders)  Germany

Mosley (Michael Shevloff)  Great Britain

For Sama (Waad Al-Khateab, Edward Watts)  Great Britain

Mullah,s Daughter (Hassan Solhjoo, Mahdieh Sadat)  Great Britain

Moti Bagh (Nirmal Chander)  India (PSBT)

Prison Diaries (Uma Chakravarti)  India (PSBT)

Sharmila Tagore (Umang Sabarwal)  India (PSBT)

The Geshema is Born (Malati Rao)  India (PSBT)

Missing Days (Ekta Mittal)  India (PSBT)

A Foreigner in my Own Land (Nishajyoti Sharma)  India  (TISS)

Saroj Dutta and His Times (Kasturi Basu, Mitali Biswas)  India

Kaifinama (Sumantra Ghosal)  India

Objector (Molly Stuart)  Israel

Sea is Shaking (Nikita Tuzov)  Russia

The Abode. Who are we? (Eleonora Tukhareli)  Russia

Behind India, a look through their social movements (Fernando Vera)  Spain

King of Beasts (Tomer Almagor, Nadav Harel)  USA


Films selected for Imagineindia 2019

Masala Chai (Marco Hülser)  Germany

Letters from Kurdistan (Reber Dosky)  Iraq

Purdah (Jeremy Guy)  India, USA

Decoding Shankar (Deepti Pillai Sivan)  India

The Death of Us (Vani Subramanian)  India

India,s Healing Forests (Nitin Das)  India

Tales From Our Childhood (Mukul Haloi)  India

We, the people (Samarth Mahajan)  India

Mrinal Sen, an Era in Cinema (Rajdeep Paul)  India

The Way (Olesya Shigina / Veronica Ponomareva)  Russia / France

Ritwik Ghatak, brilliant and abrasive

FILM  SELECTED :

AJANTRIK

Since his death at age fifty in 1976, Ritwik Ghatak has come to be regarded as one of the greatest figures in postwar Indian cinema for his brilliant and abrasive films, which certainly rank among the most revolutionary achievements in contemporary Indian art. Involved from an early age in politics and leave out theater, Ghatak was a member of the Indian Communist Party and regarded Brecht and Eisenstein as his artistic heroes. Consequently, Ghatak’s films wed his activism with rich cultural content, fashioning popular forms – melodrama, songs, dances – into appropriate vehicles for radical political expression. His films are almost all veiled autobiographies.

Continue reading Ritwik Ghatak, brilliant and abrasive