Staff Reporter :
The 14th edition of Dhaka International Film Festival, which will be held in Dhaka from January 14 to 22, will feature 170 films from 55 countries.
Organised every two years by Rainbow Film Society since 1992, the event will screen films divided into different categories as well as feature two conferences and a workshop.
It will have a competition section for Asian and Australian films. There will also be categories such as retrospective film sessions, children’s films, films by women directors, short and independent films, spiritual films and films from Scandinavian countries.
In the retrospective segment, films made by Anja Breien, a Norwegian film director and screenwriter will be shown.
Bangladeshi director Rubayat Hossain’s latest venture, Under Construction, will open the festival on January 14 with the theme: ‘Better Film, Better Audience and Better Society.’
The first conference – 2nd International Conference on Women in Cinema – will be held at Alliance Française de Dhaka (AFD) from January 15 to 16. It will be headed by the Norwegian filmmaker Vigdis Lian, also former director of Norwegian Film Institute.
Afghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi, Tajik filmmaker and historian Sharofat M Arabova, University of St Andrews University’s Professor Dina Iordanova and Canadian filmmaker Josephine Massarella will present papers at the seminar.
The second conference will also be held at AFD on January 17. It will be organised by International Emerging Talent Films Association, a European body based in Monaco, in association with DIFF.
IEFTA director Marco Orsini will be present at the conference.
Moreover, there will also be a workshop on January 16-22 for aspiring filmmakers titled 6th Dhaka Cine Workshop, to be organised by International Film Critics Association of Bangladesh in association with the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh.
Norway-based Turkish writer and filmmaker Nefise Özkal Lorentzen will conduct the workshop.
This was announced by the festival director Ahmed Muztaba Zamal at a press conference held at Dhaka Club Guest House Restaurant on Monday.
Therefore, Mofidul Haque, Samia Zaman, Rabiul Husain, Dr Nazmul A Kalimullah, among others, spoke at the conference.
