Entertainment Report :
The 24th edition of the Dhaka International Film Festival will be held next year. It will begin on January 10. About 267 full-length and short films from 91 countries will be screened during the 9-day festival. The festival will be organised by the Rainbow Film Society with the theme ‘Aesthetic Films, Contemplative Viewers, Enlightened Society’.
The organisers are currently busy preparing. The names of the jury members for the two categories were announced yesterday. Actress and director Afsana Mimi is on the list of judges.
Afsana Mimi will be in charge of the Women Filmmaker category, which showcases feature-length films, short films and documentaries made by women filmmakers. The Best Director, Best Documentary and Best Fiction categories are selected by an independent jury consisting of female filmmakers, artists and cultural experts. Apart from Mimi, the jury for this category includes UK-based Croatian documentary filmmaker and educator Aleksandra Markovic, Iranian-Australian filmmaker and visual artist Ronak Taher, renowned Philippine film and stage actress Geraldine Villamil and Paris-based American teacher and filmmaker Marion Standefer. The festival will also feature the ‘Twelfth International Women Filmmakers Conference’ on the role of women in film.
Women filmmakers and researchers from around the world will participate in the conference, which will be held at the Dhaka Club on January 11 and 12.
The jury for the Spiritual Films category, in addition to the Women Filmmakers category, has been announced. The jury members for this category are Bangladeshi writer and producer Tanvir Hossain, Swiss project manager Teresa Vina, Brazilian audiovisual artist and photographer Milena Quarz, German filmmaker Daria Silfstein, and Iranian producer Ehsan Kaveh.
This year, the Dhaka Festival will have a total of 10 categories, including Women Filmmakers and Spiritual Films. The other categories are Bangladesh Panorama, Asian Cinema Section, Retrospective, Tribute, Wide Angle, Cinema
of the World, Children’s Films and Short and Independent Films. The films will be screened at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, National Museum Auditorium and Alliance Française Auditorium.
