Osian's Cinefan 2007 : Festival Directors Neville Tuli & Aruna Vasudeva's Press Conference at Hotel Taj Mahal - 4th July, 2007

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• OSIAN’S CINEFAN ASIAN, ARAB FILMFEST TO FEATURE 140 FILMS
• NEW DELHI: Around 140 films from more than 35 countries are to be screened during the Ninth Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema commencing in the capital on 20 July.
• The Festival, which commenced as an Asian film festival in 1999 as an annual feature, has been amplified from this year to include Arab cinema which was being shown hitherto as a separate section till now.
• During the Festival which will conclude with the awards function and the closing film on July 29, screenings will be held in the auditoriums of the Sirifort complex, the Alliance Francaise, PVR Plaza and PVR Rivoli.
• Recognised as one of the world’s leading film festivals, it is organized by Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art, India’s pioneering arts institution and auction house established in 2000, to create a merit-oriented and financially independent cultural infrastructure, with the support of the Government of the NCT of Delhi.
• The inauguration of the Festival will have the international Premiere of Babak Shirinshefat’s film ‘Raami’ which is an Iran-Azerbaijan co-production. Renowned critic and author Tadao Sato of Japan will be conferred the annual Lifetime Achievement Award for promotion of Asian cinema. The closing film will be ‘Cut and Paste’ by Hala Khalil of Egypt.
• Addressing a press meet here, Mr Neville Tuli who heads Osian’s claimed that the Festival will play host to over 300 international and Indian guests and expects an audience turnout of over 60,000.
• He said the aim of the festival was not merely to show films, but work towards creating a film culture in the country. He said Indians as a whole were very crazy about films, but did not have a film culture which could enable them to understand and appreciate good cinema.
• Renowned film critic and festival founder-director Aruna Vasudev said that this year’s festival had several special features. The films will be adjudged by five juries – one each for Indian Competition, Asian and Arab Cinema, and the newly-introduced First Features. In addition, there will be a jury of FIPRESCI which is the international organisation of film critics, and a jury of NETPAC from the Network for Promotion of Asian Cinema.
• The Festival, with the tagline ‘Recreating Cinematic Culture’, will have a Focus on Japan with a tribute to Kenji Mizoguchi. A number of contemporary Japanese and samurai films will be screened. Accompanying this focus are Japanese poster designs of World Cinema. One of the biggest exhibitions from the realm of Magic and Fiction, cinematic artworks from the realm of Horror and Science Fiction, and displays of the legendary divas of World Cinema as well as a gigantic display of fifty great Indian female stars will be screened.
• The Japan focus will also have a benshi performance – the first of its kind in India - that opens the homage to Kenji Mizoguchi on 21 July 2007. Benshi was used with silent films with a narrator - the benshi - telling the story. The festival will screen Mizoguchi’s silent 1933 masterpiece, The Water Magician with a narration by one of the world’s leading benshis, Ms Yuko Saito.
• The Silhouettes section will consist of films with women as central characters in an oblique reference to Mizoguchi’s predilection for highlighting the situation of women in Japanese society in his time.
• The regular sections are Cross-Cultural Encounters, Frescoes (of Asian and Arab films), In-Tolerance and Indian Mosaic for the best of the previous year’s productions.
• Commemorating the 150th anniversary of India’s First War of Independence in 1857 will be films that describe the struggle for freedom in Asia and the Arab world in a section called Hymns to Freedom. This will be accompanied by an exhibition entitled A Historical Epic II: 1850 – 1880s, that focuses on the specific period between1850-60, and lays special emphasis on the 1857 Uprising in India. The exhibition comprises photographs, chromolithographs, photographic stills, hand-painted photographic stills.
• In Springboard, the role of film festivals in laying the foundation for the success of a film by showcasing films which, because of the awards or recognition they received there, went on to become landmarks in the history of world cinema will be remembered.
• There is a section devoted to the technique of cinema, Filmcraft where the place of the cinematographer will be highlighted this year.
• Within the framework of IBM2 (Infrastructure Building for Minds and Markets), conceived as a stepping stone to the programming needs of Osianama, a number of panel discussions will be held with directors, festival directors, historians and critics that echo the various sections of the festival, including one on cinematography. Talent Campus India for young and aspiring filmmakers, forges ahead, Osian’s Cinefan will host its 4th edition this year.
• A Conference on the Origins of Cinema in Asia will discuss how cinema arrived in different Asian countries, and the issues that surrounded its growth. The subject of Asia’s early cinema is significant when seen in the light of the region’s evolving identity.
• An Auction of Popular Culture and Film Memorabilia along with a number of exhibitions, the Talent Campus for budding young filmmakers from South Asia will be held.

• Main Event : Osian's Cinefan - 9th Festival of Asian & Arab Cinema - 20th to 29th July, 2007