Kaamyaab
Hardik Mehta
India. 105 min.  2018

The drama is based on a seasoned character actor who decides to come out of retirement and begins a quest for a record of some sorts, that elusive 500th role, the one for which he shall be remembered forever.

HARDIK  MEHTA

Hardik Mehta is an Indian screenwriter and director, who has worked on Hindi feature films like Queen (2014) and Lootera (2013). His Gujarati-language documentary, Amdavad Ma Famous (2015), won the Swarna Kamal (Golden Lotus) at the 63rd National Film Awards for Best Non-Feature Film.

He has also co-written the screenplay for Vikramaditya Motwane’s most recent survival-thriller, Trapped (2017), alongside Amit Joshi.

He has written and directed his debut feature film Kaamyaab (2018) which premiered at the Busan Film Festival.

POSTER

CONTACT

Ritika Bhatia :    ritika@drishyamfilms.com

Kia and Cosmos
Sudipto Roy
India. 123 min.  2018

Kia is a 15-years old girl diagnosed with autism and who lives with her mother Diya, in South Kolkata, since her father passed away a couple of years back succumbing to a massive heart attack. One day, Cosmos, a neighbourhood cat, suddenly dies awakening Kia’s curiosity of investigating the cause. Diya coaxes unsuccessfully her daughter to forget the death of Cosmos. In one of the investigative ventures in her own house, she chances upon a few letters with her name written on them. They were from her father and Diya had concealed the truth from her daughter for all these years. Her father was alive and Kia was decided to look for him. Kia tackles every hurdle to find her way to her father. A postal address was all that she had. Why did her father leave them? Will she reach her father?

SUDIPTO  ROY

Sudipto Roy is an Indian writer and director. Having worked as an International Travel Journalist, with a career that spans across a decade and the world’s most celebrated and quaint cities turning muse his heart lies in story-telling and films. With the keen ear of a guitarist, two very well received short films under his belt and an enviable experience in working with veterans of Indian Cinema, “Kia & Cosmos” is his first feature film.

POSTER

CONTACT

Sudipto Roy :    sudiptoroy.dgp@gmail.com

 

3 Storeys
Arjun Mukherjee
India. 100 min. 2018

In Arjun Mukherjee’s “3 Storeys”, a portmanteau film set in a Mumbai chawl, the lives of residents intersect and clash in several unexpected ways.

Mayanagar is three Storey Chawl in Mumbai. Flory Mendonca, a Catholic widow, wants to give away a part of her house but doesn’t have buyers due to its high price. Finally Vilas, who is eager to take a house near station, buys it. Whereas in the same building, Varsha is facing daily abuse from her unemployed and alcoholic husband. On the other hand she still has feelings for her past lover, Shankar, and bonds well with her neighbor and tends her little son. Suahil and Malini falls in love being from different faiths much chagrin to their parents.On the ground floor lives glamours Leela, who sends seductive vibes towards man around.The lives of people living in Mayanagar don’t seem to be what it is as there are hidden secrets.

In all three stories, director Mukherjee makes sure there is some twist at the end, some curveball that he throws at the audience that, more often than not, fails to stick. The acting is uneven, which is perhaps to be expected in a film with an ensemble cast. Most of the actors, including Makhija and newcomers Ankit Rathi and Aisha Ahmed, look like they’ve walked in from the posh bylanes of Bandra into the chawl and its squalid surroundings.

ARJUN  MUKHERJEE

While pursuing a degree in Philosophy and Economics, Arjun Mukerjee was inspired by a few films he chanced upon, and decided to dive off the deep-end to become a film-maker.  His film school was an advertising film production house in Bombay which he joined in 1994.

He started directing commercials in 1999, and has since directed almost a hundred commercials for brands like Pepsico, ING, Suzuki, Reliance telecom, Colgate Palmolive and Procter and Gamble. One of his films, a CSR for water conservation, won a World Silver Medal at the New York A.M.E film festival.

 

POSTER

CONTACT

Priya :        priya@openairfilms.com

In The Shadows
Dipesh Jain
India.  117 min. 2017

A reclusive shopkeeper spends his life isolated from the outside world, interacting with his home of Old Delhi solely through hidden closed-circuit cameras. Meanwhile, a boy struggles to protect his mother and younger brother from the harsh sting of his father’s hands. When the shopkeeper overhears this abuse he must break free from his self-imposed prison in order to help the boy, discovering a shocking truth along the way.

DIPESH  JAIN

Dipesh Jain – Director, Screenwriter, Producer Director’s Guild Of America (DGA) Student Award recipient, Dipesh Jain is a graduate of University of Southern California Film School. He has written, directed and produced award-winning films, documentaries and stage plays in India, Prague and US. Before USC he studied at Prague Film School and also has Chartered Accountancy and CPA. 11 WEEKS, his thesis film at USC, was shot in terrorist areas of Kashmir with local people and real army. The film has screened at numerous film festivals such as Chicago, Mexico, Melbourne, Heartland and USA FF and won awards including Alfred P. Sloan, Carole Fielding, Best Short at 35th Cleveland Intl FF, Finalist at USA FF. His other films, including 5 QUESTIONS 5 CHANCES, have played festivals in Asia and Europe. A recipient of Panavision Young Filmmaker Award, Dipesh has been selected for the Talents Lab at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival and the Producer’s Lab at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI). Dipesh wants to make strong character driven films for the international audience and has several feature screenplays set in US, UK and India at various stages of development. His screenplay A STONE’S THROW AWAY, a political drama set in Kashmir, was placed semi-finalist in the Sundance Screenwriting Lab, and quarter- finalist in the American Zoetrope Screenplay Competition.

POSTER

CONTACT

MPM Films :    festival@mpmfilm.com

Identity
Samuel Thivierge
Canada. 93 min.  2018

Caught between vice, lust and love, Christopher Begin begins to make his way through adulthood, living in the fast lane fraught with lies and trickery. Driven by his desire to protect his mother, Chris meets his mentor Roger, a masterful conman who will guide his protégé towards the darkest corners of human nature, until the day Chris’ path crosses that of Roger. Suddenly, the consequences of the choices made by Chris can be felt by those he treasures most. Inspired by a true story, uncover the destiny of a young man from a good family who becomes an effective and seductive con artist, crushing the dreams of innocent people in his wake.

SAMUEL  THIVIERGE

Samuel Thivierge graduated from Vancouver Film School. He made his directorial debut in the dramatic short Love Lost (2011) and wrote, produced and starred in crime thriller Dead Simple (2012). In the same year while building up his acting resume, Thivierge was quietly working on his first feature film, La fille du Martin (2013) which he ended up directing, producing and starring in. Thivierge premiered the film at the Montreal World Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Golden Zenith award.

POSTER

The Delegation
Bujar Alimani
Albania.  77 min.  2018

In 1990, in a remote area of Albania, a political prisoner is transferred overnight without knowing where or why. The car transporting him breaks down in the heart of the mountains. The prisoner gets acquainted with his two guards, officials devoted to the Albanian Communist Party. Their personal stories intertwine, tensions burst, just like the history of a country in turmoil.

October 1990. Inmates in a remote political prison in Albania are watching the TV evening news in the cafeteria. They follow with great interest the arrival, in Tirana, the capital city, of a European Delegation that will monitor the government’s implementation of the reforms it has promised – a major prerequisite for the country to be admitted into the OSCE. They have high hopes that the time for them to be released has come. Pressure from international stakeholders on the Albanian government to push for further reform remains high, especially in human rights, which are seen as a litmus test for Albania’s membership.

BUJAR  ALIMANI

Bujar Alimani is one of the most prolific and important writer/director of the New Albanian Cinema.

Since his start as a filmmaker with an extraordinary series of avant-garde short films, KATOI (The Kennel), GAS, BUSULLA (The Compass) and NJE HISTORY DASHURIE (A Love Story), Bujar’s work has been garlanded with praise for its wild imagination mixed with gritty realism. Nominated for the Oscars twice, Bujar’s work has been featured at every major film festival worldwide including Sundance and Berlin, he’s received countless international film festival awards for critically acclaimed shorts and feature films worldwide, and his work’s been presented at some of the most prestigious institutions internationally including MoMa in NYC, proving him as a significant art house hit.

Bujar began his foray into features films by writing and directing AMNISTIA (Amnesty), his first full-length feature film recognized by the critics as a masterpiece. He won the CICAE award at The Berlinale (Berlin Film Festival) and participated in 80 additional film festivals around the globe of which he won 13 additional awards. This success culminated in 2012, when AMNISTIA was officially selected to represent Albania at the Oscars, which led it to be honored at MoMA (Museum of Modern Arts) in New York City.

Following the success of AMNISTIA, Bujar’s second feature film KROM (Chromium) premiered at Karlovy Vary film festival (Czech Republic) and then went on to participate in 18 international festivals worldwide, once again winning several awards. Just as AMNISTIA, KROM then also went on to represent Albania in the foreign language category at the Academy Awards 2016.

POSTER

CONTACT

Producer :    blerim.gjinovci @gmail.com

Black Kite
Tarique Qayumi
Afganistan.  88 min.  2017

Five decades of political turmoil in Afghanistan are seen through the eyes of a hapless kite maker, the middle generation of a doomed dynasty.

Arian loves kites but a changing Afghanistan stands in his way. When the Taliban take power and ban kite flying, he all but gives up on his passion. However, to give his daughter Seema a sense of childhood that he once had, Arian risks his life to find and fly kites.

An Afghan refugee who emigrated to Canada before studying film at UCLA, writer-director Tarique Qayumi revisits his homeland’s tumultuous recent past with Black Kite. World premiering in Toronto, Qayumi’s second feature is an intimate family drama set against a widescreen historical canvas. It stars one of Afghanistan’s best-known actors, Haji Gul, and was partly shot in Kabul in low-key guerrilla style to avoid attracting unwelcome attention from the Islamist factions that still hold sway in parts of the country.

TARIQUE  QAYUMI

Tarique Qayumi was born in Afghanistan and went to Canada as a refugee in 1983. He graduate school at UCLA, where he completed his Screenwriting MFA. While in Afghanistan (2011- 2015) he wrote, directed and produced “Truth Unveiled”, Afghanistan’s first docudrama series; “The Defenders”, a drama miniseries, as well as Afghan “Sesame Street”. His first feature film, “Targeting” was directed in Los Angeles: a psychological-thriller about a female American soldier who returns home from war. “Black Kite” is his second feature: he wrote, directed, edited, and shot the film. He received both a grant from Canada Council for the Arts and as well the British Columbia Council for the Arts. “Black Kite” premiered at TIFF in 2017.

• 

• 

POSTER

Vellapokkathil
Jayaraj
India. 26 min. 2008

The flood that visited Kerala during 1928 was unprecedented and devastating. The actual events and experiences moved Thakazhi Siva Sankara Pillai to pen this story. This short film based on the above story brings out the beast in human beings set amidst the backdrop in Kuttanad. The same story relived before me when I saw the footage of the aftermath of a recent hurricane in America. What stood apart as a stark reality, unblemished by time and location, was the human character, ungratefulness ingrained in its very nature.

Bhayanakam
Jayaraj
India.  125 min.  2018

As the Second World War begins, a new postman takes charge in Kuttanad. The war intensifies and the postman whom the people had considered as a harbinger of good news turns out to be a messenger of death.

Bringing to mind Winston Churchil’s famous quip during the Second World war, ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat’, the postman in Jayaraj’s Bhayanakam, who is a former soldier, is a relic of war with nothing else to offer but tearful memories of it. For the people of Kuttanad too, he has nothing to offer other than news of death. For them, the postman who was once the symbol of positivity and a good omen becomes a messenger of death and his bag carries the burden of war in the form of telegrams that breaks umpteen hearts and homes.

JAYARAJ

Jayarajan Rajasekharan Nair, professionally credited as Jayaraj, is an Indian filmmaker, who predominantly works in Malayalam film industry. He is the founder of the Birds Club International and is actively involved in philanthropic work. Jayaraj is a recipient of the Crystal Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Golden Peacock award at the IFFI , the Golden Crow Pheasant award at the IFFK , the FIPRESCI Award from the International Federation of Film Critics, the Don Quijote Award from the International Federation of Film Societies, The Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) award and a special mention award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. He is also a 7 time recipient of the National Film Award and several Kerala State Film Awards. His notable films include, Desadanam (1996), Kaliyattam (1997), Karunam (2000), Shantham (2001), Daivanamathil (2005), Vellapokkathil (2007), Ottaal (2015), Veeram (2017) and Bhayanakam (2018).

POSTER

Olu (She)
Shaji N. Karun
India.  109 min.  2018

The story of a girl Maya (Esther Anil), who is raped and discarded in the Kerala backwaters. She mysteriously survives underwater and is carrying a child. On full moon nights, she can see above water and on one such night, she sees a painter Vasu (Shane Nigam), as he is wandering the waters on his boat. An unsuccessful and uninspired artist, Vasu is struggling to create something spectacular in his paintings. Maya decides to help and empowers him to create a painting which changes his life. As Maya falls in love, she confronts Vasu’s contrasting ideas about love and realize that they seek different things from each other.

Set in a village, the film blends ancient beliefs, customs, religion, and mythology to create a densely layered film which engages on several counts. In imagining a different fate for its protagonist, melding her fate with that of a goddess, the film offers the woman an empowering choice instead of the one intended by her rapists.

The role of nature as the giver of life and beauty is foregrounded and intertwined with Maya, as nature finds primacy in the mythology of the goddess as well as in the creativity of the artist. The stunning choreography, a hallmark of Karun’s films, brings this unusual fantasy to life as the Kerala backwaters are created in exquisite detail.