The 8th Dhaka International Film Festival

SWM Desk

The 8th Dhaka International Film Festival (DIFF) will be held in Dhaka from January 15 to 23. 100 films are expected to be screened at the festival. Participating countries -- besides host country Bangladesh -- include Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, China, Denmark, Egypt, England, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Hungary, Latvia, Lebanon, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tunisia and the USA.

The festival includes 11 segments: Competition Section, Retrospective, Tribute, Special Session, Cinema of the World, Children's Film Festival, Focus on Switzerland, Films from Scandinavian Countries, Bangladesh Panorama, Contemporary Italian Cinema and Independent Films. "Retrospective" will showcase films by German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi, Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi and Indian filmmaker Shyam Benegal. "Tribute" will feature a full-length film by Russian filmmaker Sergei Bondarchuk and "Bangladesh Panorama" will feature five to seven films made between 1956 and 2003. DIFF will for the first time be screening films by independent filmmakers in video Beta cam/VCD/DVD format in the Independent Films Section.

The Rainbow Award will be given to the best film among all the segments. Prizes will also be awarded in the Competition Section (restricted to Asian films only), Cinema of the World (the Audience Award), and the Children's Film Festival (Best Juvenile Audience Award) segments. A daylong series of international seminars will also be held at the German Cultural Center on January 18, 2004, organised by the International Film Critics Association of Bangladesh (IFCAB), the theme for this year's seminars being "Globalisation and Film".

The festival is being organised by Rainbow Film Society which was formed by young Bangladeshi film enthusiasts in 1977. The society organises regular film shows and film related seminars and workshops and also brings out the only cinema periodical from Bangladesh, "The Celluloid", which reaches readers the world over. Films will be screened, among other places, at the Public Library, National Museum, the German, Indian and Russian Cultural Centres and at Balaka and Binaka cinema halls.