The Arthouse Asia Film Festival, presented by Arthouse Film Foundation and Doab Uncut Motion will continue its tradition of celebrating and encouraging Arthouse cinema in 2020. This is the 4th edition of A2FF and the event has gone global in true sense in recent past. More than 50 films will be screened during the festival which include acclaimed shorts and full-length feature films. Out of these 12 films are premiering first time in Asia and 4 are Kolkata premiere. For the first time in India, a screenwriting and producers' workshop has been arranged collaborating with internationally renowned Produire au Sud. 7 projects from South Asia have been selected for this workshop on 11th January.
Masterclass by eminent filmmakers, film talks, panel discussions and industry meet will also be organized during the event. For example a Masterclass by Buddhadeb Dasgupta in conversation with Aseem Chabra, festival director of New York Indian Film Festival, a Masterclass by Sanal Kumar Sashidharan, the Book Launch of “IRFAAN” by Aseem Chabra in conversation with Sandip Ray.
Especially thought for independent filmmakers aiming to screen film at A-List film festival: “Driving your feature film within international festival circuits : issues of international distribution” – French Panelist Jérôme Baron and Pascale Ramonda. “Positioning of your feature project within the international markets” – panelist Juliette Grandmont and Marc Irmer. These sessions will be moderated by Guillaume Mainguet, and Bengali Filmmakers roundtable, Panelist Amitava Chattarjee, Amartya Mukhopadhay, Bauddhayan Mukherji, Debalina Majumder, Pradipta Chattapadhyay, Arifur Rahman. moderated by Saibal Chatterjee
The International Competition Jury is headed by Jerome Baron, Artistic Director of Arthouse Asia Film Festival, and includes Rajeev Masand (Bollywood film critic) and Acclaimed Bangladeshi Actress Rokeya Prachy. Festival guests include Gurvinder Singh and Stefano Tealdi.
Let's have a look at the Asian Movies in the Programme:
COMPETITION SECTION
Feature Films
Chola
(India) Director: Sanal Kumar Sasidharan
Teenage Janaki departs for a day in the city at dawn. Her suitor has arranged for a ride with his boss, a sullen and dark man who lets Janaki know that he knows she's there without her mother's permission.
Diapason
(Iran) Director: Named Tehrani
A grieving mother fights for justice in Iran's inherently patriarchal systems.
Gamak Ghar
(India) Director: Achal Mishra
In a north Indian village, a family reunites at their ancestral house to celebrate a new birth in the family. It's a joyous, carefree occasion. Over the next two decades, through festivals and feasts, births and deaths, the film observes the house age, and the relentlessness of passing time straying and fraying familial ties.
Made in Bangladesh
(Bangladesh/France) Director: Rubaiyat Hossain
Shimu fled her village as a child when her stepmother threatened to marry her off to a middle-aged man. Now 23 and living in the capital, she works grueling hours for paltry sums at a textile factory while her husband searches for work.
Nimtoh
(India) Director: Saurav Rai
10-year-old Tashi and his aging grandma live as tenants to a wealthy family, in a remote mountain village in Darjeeling.
Weihai
(China) Director: Liang Huan
A movie screenwriter went to a seaside town for ten days. There, he meets a divorced lady and a 15-year-old boy who identified himself as a woman.
Short Films
An Irrelevant Dialogue
(India) Director: Moinak Guho
An old couple plead guilty of what they think is a crime, to pursue a long cherished desire.
Darling
(Pakistan) Director: Saim Sadiq
As a new show is introduced at an erotic dance theatre in Lahore, a sacrificial goat goes missing, a dreamy trans girl desperately tries to become a star and a naive young boy falls in love.
Knock Knock Knock
(India) Director: Sudhanshu Saria
Sitting in a sleepy cafe in Darjeeling, Dada is designing the perfect crossword when a young, Nepali boy interrupts his work, eager to befriend him. But who is this boy? Someone's knocking and Dada has to decide if he will answer or not.
Marooned
(China) Director: Shiyou Yan
It is a short film about fringe youngsters' lives in China, as well as the crime and punishment they would experience.
Rang Mahal
(India) Director: Prantik Narayan Basu
A documentary short about a Santhali (indigenous Indian tribe) rendition of the creation myth.
Roqaia
(Bangladesh/Afganishtan) Director: Diana Saqueb Jamal
After surviving a suicide bomb attack, 12-year-old Roqaia finds herself in the middle of a media frenzy, as she deals with her trauma all by herself.
Sunday
(Singapore) Director: Kris Ong
A young woman with a full body rash is driven to violence during a forbidden encounter with her sister's boyfriend.
Documentary Films
Strangers
(Germany/India) Director: Laura Kansy, Oskar Zoche
In turbulen times, four strangers, who would never meet in real life, enter into dialogue and draw an intimate portrait of an Indian society.
GEMS OF INDIA (Non-Competition)
Khanaur/Bitter Chestnut
Director: Gurvinder Singh
Kishan, 17, wavers between his own desires and his family's hopes for him. He has to make a choice: should he live a predictable life in his remote Himalayan village or migrate to the city? Working in a café and witnessing migrations and reverse-migrations, he has disturbed sleep and nightmares.
Nirvana Inn
Director: Mathivanan Rajendran
It follows the story of a boatman who becomes the caretaker of a Himalayan resort after committing a series of murder.
That Cloud Never Left
Director: Yashaswani Raghunandan
Toymakers in a Bengal village prepare for an upcoming lunareclipse.
CATCH UP (Non-Competition)
Bulbul Can Sing
Director: Rima Das
Bulbul is a young girl who lives in Kalardiya village near Chaygaon in India's Assam state. She has two best friends, Bonny and Sumu, and they are coming of age and finding their own identities but who they want to be and what their community expect them to be are two different things as they find themselves at odds with the social mores and moral codes of their village.
Live From Dhaka
Director: Abdullah Mohammad Saad
In a series of vignettes, a partially handicapped man lives his days in anguish as he tries to find a way to leave Dhaka.
More info and the complete Programme can be found on the Official Website
