International Film Festival of India unveils competition section with 15 titles including ‘Mediterranean Fever’, ‘When The Waves Are Gone’ and ‘The Storyteller’

The International Film Festival of India (IFFI) has announced the 15 films screened in competition at this year’s edition of the annual event, including current festival favorites such as Maha Hajs Mediterranean fever and Lav Diaz’ When the waves are goneand three Indian films, including the recent premiere in Busan The Storyteller.

The selection of 12 international titles also includes that of the Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi perfect number; Syrian filmmaker Soudade Kaadan Nezouh; Red shoesby Toshiro Saiga of Japan; Cold as marbleby Asif Rustamov of Azerbaijan; seven dogs, by Rodrigo Guerrero of Argentina; Ursula Meier The line (La Ligne); Valentina Maurel I have electric dreamsand two Iranian films – Dariush Mehrjuis A small one and that of Nader Saeivar No end.

South Asia is also represented by Maria: The sea angelabout a group of fishermen who are disturbed by a sex doll they find in the sea, directed by Sri Lankan filmmaker Aruna Jayawardana.

The other two Indian titles are Hindi language The Kashmir filesdirected by Ananth Narayan Mahadevan, a controversial drama about the exodus of the Pandit Hindu community from Kashmir in the 1990s, and in Tamil Kurangu pedaldirected by Kamalakannan S. about a father-son relationship in a South Indian village in the 1980s.

Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s Hindi language The Storytellerbased on a short story by Satyajit Ray, which appeared in the Jiseok competition of the Busan International Film Festival this year.

The 15 films are competing for the IFFI’s Golden Peacock Awards. The festival opens with Alma and Oscardirected by Dieter Berner of Austria about the relationship between the grande dame Alma Mahler of Viennese society and the Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka.

The festival also announced a series of master classes, including with Kung Fu Panda Director Mark Osborne, Indian actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui (The lunch box), Chennai-based director Mani Ratnam, who recently had a hit with Ponniyin Selvan: 1, RRR Writers Vijayendra Prasad and RRR Editor Sreekar Prasad.

Organized by India’s National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), the festival will take place from November 20 to 28 in Panjim, the capital of the Indian state of Goa.

The Film Bazaar Industry Platform, hosted annually by NFDC since 2007, will be held from November 20-24 at the Goa Marriott Resort. Film Bazaar includes a Work-in-Progress section that has selected five titles, Co-production Market, which includes 20 projects, and Film Bazaar Recommends, which presents a selection of recent Indian films to international programmers and distributors.