INDIA-DELHI-OSIAN FESTIVAL IRANIAN DIRECTOR’S FILM "RAAMI" TO OPEN 9TH OSIAN CINEFAN FESTIVAL HERE TOMORROW
IRNA, Iran
July 20 2007
Iran-Azerbaijan co-production "Raami" by Iranian director Babak
Shirinsefat will be the opening film of the 9th Osian Cinefan Festival
beginning here July 20.
The film tells the story of a middle-aged Azerbaijani folk music
composer who has spent a decade in a war refugee camp in Sabirabad
and then goes looking for his Armenian wife and child 10 years after
the Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Around 140 films from more than 35 countries are to be screened during
the festival dedicated to Asian and Arab cinema, which will continue
till July 29.
"Arab films have proved to be inventive, imaginative and bold; some
are personal statements, others social comments, questioning and
chronicling tradition, everyday life, war, gender, fundamentalism
and much else," says Neville Tuli, chairman of Osian’s Connoisseurs
of Art, organisers of the annual fete.
The competition section which was till last year limited to films
from Asia now broadens its base to include films from the Arab world.
Two films from Tunisia — "Tender is the Wolf" and "Making Of" —
and one from Lebanon — "Falafel" – along with eight other works from
Asia are in the fray for the top award.
Other Arab films to be screened at the festival include — Saudi
Arabian director Abdullah Al-Muheisen’s "Shadows of Silence", "WWW:
What a Wonderful World" by Fouzi Bensaidi (Morocco), "Cut and Paste"
by Hala Khalil (Egypt), "The Yacoubian Building" by Marwan Hamed and
"None But That".
Commemorating the 150th anniversary of India’s First War of
Independence in 1857 will be a section of films that describe the
struggle for freedom in Asia and the Arab world.
The Festival is organized by Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art, India’s
pioneering arts institution and auction house established in 2000,
to create a merit-oriented and financially independent cultural
infrastructure.
This year it will take place from 20 to 29 July, 2007 in seven theaters
in New Delhi.