ANTALYA: The Fourth Eurasian Film Festival has seen a marginal increase of participation from India in terms of delegates.
The festival did not have a single entry from India against at least one last year (Frozen by Shivajee Chandrabhushan). In fact, the festival last year also had greater Indian participation, at least three other films– Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth – the Golden Era, Asif Kapadia’s Far North and A Mighty Heart.
The festival this year has one Indian – Osian’s Raman Chawla – in the jury of the Network for Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) and for the first time has an Indian distributor – Sun Stone Entertainment of Mumbai headed by Sanjay Jumani – who has put up a stall in the three-day Film Market.
In addition, the market has three delegates including Kamal Jain of Superfine Films and Sashi B Kumar of Mudra Arts. Though in the the market, three others including Ultra’s S Narayanan and Sunil Doshi of Alliance Media (which procures films for NDTV Lumiere), failed to turn up.
Interestingly, Spierfilms of the United Kingdom which also has a stall in the market, has been marketing some Indian films like those by Priyadarshan.
The one Indian film which was slated for a Gala Screening here – Hindi thriller Mission Istanbul directed by Apoorva Lakhia – was cancelled because of what a festival spokesperson described as a break of communication between the Indian distributor and the festival authorities.
While the large gathering at the inaugural venue was held spell-bound by the highly popular singer Candan Encetin who performed for almost two hours, several senior personalities of Turkish cinema were honoured for their contributions. They included actress Hulya Avsar who received an award as a successful star, honorary award went to SESAM (Union of Professional Owners of Cinema Works) President Yilmaz Atadeniz, renowned actor Musfit Kenter who received the Yildrim Onal Memorial Award, and actress Filiz Akin who received a special medallion of the Golden Orange.
The 9-member jury headed by actor Tuncel Kurtiz will adjudge the Turkish feature films, a five member jury headed by director Selim Demirdelen will adjudge the National Short film competition and another five member jury headed by Günes Karabuda – Director (Jury President) will examine the entries for documentaries. There is also a jury for script development.
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