IFFK 2023: Veteran actor Nana Patekar to be Chief Guest at 28th edition of festival

The 28th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) will kick off on Friday (December 8) at Thiruvananthapuram. Prominent Hindi actor Nana Patekar will be the Chief Guest for the inaugural ceremony.

Thiruvananthapuram: The 28th IFFK organized by the Kerala State Film Academy will be kicked off on Friday, December 8, 2023 at 6:00 pm at Nishagandhi Auditorium, Thiruvananthapuram. Prominent Hindi actor Nana Patekar, who has won three National Film Awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, will be the chief guest at the function. Mayor Arya Rajendran will present the Spirit of Cinema Award to Kenyan director Wanuri Kahiu.
Festival Curator Golda Sellam will introduce and talk about packages at the 28th IFFK.

VK Prashanth MLA, Zilla Panchayat President Adv. D Suresh Kumar, International Competition Section Jury Chairperson and Portuguese Director Rita Acevedo Gomez, Latin American Package Curator Fernando Brunner, Sound Designer and Director Rasul Pookutty, Film Academy Chairman Ranjith, Director Shyama Prasad, KSFDC Chairman Shaji N. Karun, Cultural Workers Welfare Board Chairman Madhupal, Culture Department Secretary Mini Antony IAS, Film Chamber President BR Jacob, Academy Vice Chairman Premkumar, Secretary C. Ajoy etc. will participate in the inaugural function.

The festival, which takes place in 15 movie theatres from December 8 to 15, will feature 175 films from 81 different nations. The international competition category will feature 14 films, the Malayalam Cinema Today category will feature 12 films, and the Indian Cinema Now category will feature 7 films.

There are 62 films in the international cinema category. Of these, 26 have been officially nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film by different nations. There will be up to 12,000 delegates present at the film festival. There will be around a hundred filmmakers present at the fair as guests. At the festival's closing event, famed Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Sanusi will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.

This film festival will open with the premiere of "Goodbye Julia," directed by Mohamed Kordofani, a Sudanese filmmaker. "Goodbye Julia," which made history by being the first Sudanese film to screen at the Cannes Film Festival, was awarded the coveted Prix de la Liberte (Freedom Award). The story deftly tells the tales of two women while capturing the complex relationships and differences between the communities in the north and south of Sudan.