With 10 successful editions in the past, the Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) has steadily but surely gained its reputation and is now an event that attracts both practitioners and fans of cinema in big numbers. In its 11th edition this year, the festival began with much fanfare yesterday, the 10th of January, when it recognized the contribution of four stalwarts of the arts. Veteran actors Jeetendra Kapoor and Ramesh Deo were honoured with lifetime achievement awards while musicians Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma and Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia were presented the S D Burman Sound of Music award. The awards ceremony was followed by the screening of the Israeli film Hayuta and Berl, the feature debut of its director Amir Manor.

 

Over eight days, the festival will showcase over 200 films under nine sections: International Competition, Marathi Competition, Student Competition (live action and animation), Global Cinema, Country Focus, Retrospective, Tribute, Indian Cinema and Regional Cinema. Out of these 200, 80 films from 50 different countries will be screened under the Global Cinema section. The Countries in Focus this year are Hungary and South Korea with six and seven films, respectively, from these countries being screened.

In the Retrospective section, the works of music director Vasant Desai, actor Smita Patil, Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni and French director Claude Chabrol will be the focus. Also endeavoring to encourage young, student filmmakers, PIFF has also included several short films in its schedule. Actor Mohan Agashe said, “Through short films and the internet, this medium has become democratized. That is why this year we are featuring several short films.”

Notably, the Pune International Film Festival will celebrate the centenary of Raja Harishchandra, the first full-length Indian feature film. The film was released in 1913 and besides this, Kalia Mardan, Pather Panchali and several other films will be screened to mark 100 years of Indian movies.

The screenings will take place across six screens this year: the National Film Archives of India, E-Square, Inox and Kothrud, Abhiruchi and R-Deccan, the three City Pride cinemas. You can find the schedule of the festival here.