International Film Festival of Kerala 2022
Treasurer: Sreelal R
Deputy Director (Festival): H Shaji
Deputy Director (Programmes): N P Sajeesh
Programme Manager (Festival): Rijoy K J
Programme Manager (Finance): Sajith C C
Programme Manager (Programmes): Vimal Kumar V P
Programme Assistants: Tony Xavier, Madhavi Madhupal
Festival Assistants: Saiyed Farooq Z, Sreevidya J
Programme Assistant (Programmes): Nitin R Viswan
Research Assistant: Mrudula P
Archives Assistant: Muhammed Sajeer A V
Print Unit Coordinator: P S Sivakumar
Cashier: Sarath M
Festival Cell: Mary Ninan, Unnikrishnan C, K Harikumar, Sandhya B, John Kurian, Nishanth S T, Anu B S, Kannan R S, Arun B L, Jaya L, G Sasikala, Abdulla A, Manu M, Shamlal S S, K Venukuttan Nair, Vijayamohan B, Arun R, A Maheshkumar, Lizy M, Omana J, Jayakumari D, Sudharsanan T, Sahadevan R, Rahul Vijayan
Festival Programmers: Rosa Carillo
Technical Coordinator: Gopeekrishna S
Project Coordination: Biju S B, Ajay V, Ashish P S, Sumesh J S
Website : Deepthi N H, Sabitha G, Pranav V V, Girish Kumar V S, Jayahari K V, Chithra Reshmi S
Software: Shibu M, Kavitha T K, Mony P G, Bivin B, Abhikrishnan R
Signature Film: Mujeeb
Branding design & collaterals: Anand Rajan
Online and Symposium Coordination: Shelly J Morris
Photo Exhibition: Shankar Ramakrishnan
Filmmakers Liaison & Guest Relations: Bandhu Prasad Aleyamma, Jayesh L R, Shelly J Bella, Mohammed Rameez S, Jithin Mohan A S, Mohit R (Trivi Art Concerns)
Social Media: Ajay Mohan, Nitin R Viswan
FESTIVAL BOOK
Chief Editor: C Ajoy
Executive Editor: Rajesh Chirappadu
Associate Editors: Rahul S, Nowfal N
Editorial Team: Aneesa Iqbal, N N Baiju, Sruthi A Sreekumar, Thapasya Thankaraj, Sreaya Sreekumar, Aswathi Rajendran, Athira S, Jayakumar
Book Design: Anand Rajan
Word Processing & Page Setting: Sivaprasad B
Jacques Comets edited, among others, the films of Bernard Stora, Laurent Heynemann, Raoul Peck, Christine Pascal, Joel Farges, Petr Vaclav, Djamshed Usmonov, Ramadan Suleiman, Pablo Aguero, TsaiMing-liang, Samuel et Frédéric Guillaume, Tonie Marshall, Massoud Bakshi, Dima El-Horr, Pavel Giroud, Annemarie Jacir, Germinal Roaux, Beatriz Seigner, Rohena Gera. He accompanied the editing of various feature films of Narjiss Nejjar, Maria Gamboa, Ruben Mendoza, Lamia Joreige, Michel Kamoun, Nguyen Hoang Diep, Jacob Berger, Ferit Karahan, and Miransha Naik, Rima Das, and Prateek Vats. Until July 2018 he co-headed the editing department of the French national film school, La Femis. He was part of many seminars, workshops and juries across the globe.
Mania Akbari is an acclaimed artist and filmmaker. Her radical films were the subject of retrospectives at the BFI, London, the DFI, Denmark, Oldenburg International Film Festival, Germany, Cyprus Film Festival and Nottingham Contemporary UK. Her films have received awards including German Independence Honorary Award, Oldenberg, Best Film, Digital Section, Venice Film Festival, Nantes Special Public Award Best Film and Best Director and Best film at IFFK, Best Film and Best Actress, Barcelona Film Festival. A Moon For My Father won the NEW:VISION Award at CPH:DOX. Akbari was exiled from Iran and lives in London. Her new documentary How Dare You Have Such a Rubbish Wish is a first-person ghost-ride into the suppressed world of women in Iranian pre-revolutionary popular cinema.
Roya Sadat is Afghanistans first female award-winning producer, director and writer. She founded ROYA Film House, the first Afghan woman owned film company and the first International Womens Film Festival and RFH Academy, where aspiring film makers and artists are trained. Her films have won more the 50 international awards. Her filmography includes Three Dots, Playing the Taar and A Letter to the President, which was the official Afghan entry to 90th Academy Awards. She has successfully brought touching stories about Afghan women to international film festivals after the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for the last two decades. Roya and her family flew to the US after the recent Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
Shozo Ichiyama worked as the producer for films such as NOWHERE MAN by Naoto Takenaka and films by Hou Hsiao-sien (GOOD MEN, GOOD WOMEN, GOODBYE SOUTH, GOODBYE and FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI). Later he joined Office Kitano and produced films including Jia Zhang-ke (PLATFORM, UNKNOWN PLEASURES, THE WORLD, 24 CITY, A TOUCH OF SIN, MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART), and Samira Makhmalbaf (BLACKBOARDS). He has been the Festival Director of TOKYO FILMEX, which he founded. His later works include MR. LONG by SABU, ASH IS PUREST WHITE by Jia Zhang-ke, THEY SAY NOTHING STAY THE SAME by Joe Odagiri and THE CALMING by Song Fang. He is currently the Programming Director of Tokyo International Film Festival.
Girish Kasaravalli is a well-known Indian director who makes films in Kannada language and has won National award four times. Kasaravalli’s debut feature Ghattashraddha on caste divisions and fate of widows won him his first National Award. His second film Tabarana Kathe won him his second Golden Lotus. He later made critically acclaimed films like Mane, Ek Ghar and Kraurya. Then came, Thaayi Saaheb, considered a landmark in his career. Dweepa a film on displacement of people in the name of development brought him his fourth National Award. Girish Kasaravalli tried his hand at making a television serial, Grihabhanga. Movies like Hasina, Naayi Neralu, Gulabi Talkies and Kanasemba Kudureyaneri were widely appreciated.
Vishvanath Buddhika Keerthisena, known as Boodee Keerthisena, is an award-winning Sri Lankan director. As a young filmmaker, he has co-directed several documentaries, working with European directors and artists. Since his debut Veils of Maya (Sihina Deshayen), which won numerous awards, his unique cinematic productions; Buongiorno Italia (Mille Soya) in 2004, Matha in 2009 and Alone in a Valley (Nimnayaka Hudakalawa) in 2015 have widened the horizons of Sri Lankan cinema. He has been directing a string of diverse and experimental cinematic productions, and he has been contributing to numerous TV series and documentaries. Boodee is also a column writer as well as the writer of a number of screenplays.
Dr Bobby Sarma Baruah is a National and International award-winning Indian filmmaker, film researcher, producer and a screenwriter. Her debut feature, Adomya, was adjudged the best film in the spiritual category at the 13th Dhaka International Film Festival. Her second venture, Sonar Baran Pakhi won the audience choice award at the 15th Dhaka International Film Festival and the Grand Jury Award at the 15th Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. Her third feature film is Mishing which own her the Silver Lotus Award in 66th National Film Award. She recently completed her shooting in her fourth feature film named Sikaisal, which is in NFDC WIP Lab 2020 and won Special Mention Award, is now in post-production stage.
Dr Rashmi Doraiswamy is Professor at the Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She was the recipient of the National Award for the Best Film Critic in 1994. She was awarded the MAJLIS research fellowship in 1999 for a project titled ‘Changing Narrative Strategies of Hindi Cinema’. She has served on several film festival and critics juries in India and abroad. She was on the guest faculty for many years at the Mass Communications and Research Centre at Jamia Millia Islamia. She has participated in national and international seminars on cultural issues. Her writings on literature and cinema appeared in Indian and foreign publications. She has authored books and edited and co-edited books.
Ashok Rane is a film society activist, film critic, historian, and filmmaker and Festival Director of Fimingo International Short Film Festival and Aurangabad International Film Festival. He is the Founder Director of Indian Film Academy (IFA). He conducts film appreciation, film script writing and filmmaking workshops and has been a faculty in various institutes. Ashok has received national awards for best book on film and for best critic. His documentaries received accolades in different film festivals which includes the award winning ‘Anthony Gonsalves: The Music Legend’. He has served as a member of Fipresci jury for International Film Festival of India, National Film Awards and at the International Film Festivals of Moscow, Rotterdam, Montreal, Busan and Toronto.
Jihane Bougrine is a cultural journalist and a film critic for VH Magazine as well as a host on the weekly segment Jazz Station for Radio 2M. As a film critic and journalist, she has been a correspondent at the Cannes Festival, La Mostra di Venezia, The Berlinale, Geneva’s Filmar en America Latina, the International Short film festival in Clermont-Ferrand, the Annecy International Animated Film Festival among others. She has been a member of several festival juries. She has interviewed many personalities in the fields of film, music, art, and literature. Her interviewees include Robert De Niro, Guillermo Del Toro, Joaquim Phoenix, James Gray, Antonio Banderas, Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche.
Viera Langerova is a film critic, lecturer and scriptwriter. She worked as an editor in Slovak and Czech periodicals. She is the author of the books Film Geography: Continental China, Hongkong, Taiwan and the travelogue Urdu, Purdah, Burka. Five years in Pakistan. She read the film lectures in Baltic Film and Media School, Tallinn University in Estonia, Asian Film, Cinema of Middle East and Northern Africa and Latin American Cinema on Film Academy of Performing Arts – FAMU, Prague, Czech Republic and Theatre Anthropology on Academy of Arts – VŠMU in Bratislava (Slovakia). She also works as programmer for IFF Art Film Fest in Slovak city Košice. Viera is a member of Slovak Club of Film Journalists.
Film theorist, curator, writer, historian and a cultural activist, Amrit Gangar was the Curator for the National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC) set up in Mumbai by the Government of India. Gangar has to his credit over a dozen books on cinema. Gangar was the curator of the retrospective programme of the Mumbai International Film Festival and of film programmes for the Kala Ghoda Artfest, Mumbai. He has presented his theoretical concept of Cinema of Prayoga in different venues. Gangar has been on the national and international juries of film festivals. He has also to his credit a few short and conceptual films. His recent Gujarati book on Satyajit Ray is under publication.
A film journalist, film-critic, writer and translator Rekha Deshpande has seven books on cinema and more than 40 translated books on various subjects to her credit. Her Marathi book Nayika – a social, cultural, artistic analysis of women protagonists in the Indian cinema received the Maharashtra State Award and Marathi Chitrapatsrushticha Itihas (The History of Marathi Cinema) and Taramaticha Prawas :Bharateeya chitrapatatil stree chitranachi Shambhar Varshe (100 years of the portrayal of women in Indian Cinema) are her much acclaimed books. Her latest book is Dastan-e-Dilipkumar, an analytical biography of Dilipkumar. She has served in the jury in several international film festivals including Karlovy Vary.
Sunny Joseph is an acclaimed cinematographer from India who has worked as DOP in more than 60 feature films in 12 Indian languages and in an equal number of short films and documentaries. He has directed many short films and TV serials. Recipient of many State and national awards for cinematography and direction, Sunny is the HoD, Direction Department of LV Prasad Film & TV Academy, Trivandrum. Sunny has served as a jury member in many national and international film festivals. His debut feature film as a director, SALT OF THE EARTH, is under post production. He is the Treasurer of Indian Society of Cinematographers. His filmography as DoP include Piravi, Vasthuhara, Nizhalkuthu, Sanabi, Train to Pakistan, Kahini, Mangamma, Oru Cheru Punchiri
Ranjith, the Chairman of Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, is a veteran Indian film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor who works in Malayalam cinema. He is a recipient of five State awards and his films Thirakkatha, Indian Rupee, and Spirit won the National Film Award for Best Malayalam Film in 2008, 2011 and 2012 respectively.
Prem Kumar, the Vice-Chairman of Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, is an Indian actor known for his roles in Malayalam films. He is an author and is notable for his roles in Tele films. He has acted in more than 100 films, and played lead roles in a large number of films.
C Ajoy, the Executive Director of IFFK, is the Secretary of Kerala State Chalachitra Academy. He is also a known lyricist, who has worked predominantly in Malayalam film industry.
Bina Paul, the Artistic Director of 26 th IFFK is an Indian film editor who works mainly in Malayalam-language films. She is the recipient of two National Film Awards and three Kerala State Film Awards. She was the Vice Chairperson of Kerala State Chalachitra Academy.