The World Cinema category at the 26th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), set to begin on March 18, will showcase the works of 86 filmmakers from over 60 countries.
Under the category, many award-winning films, including the Oscar-nominated Japanese film Drive My Car, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, will be screened.
Shujun Wei's Ripples of Life, Tatiana Huezo's Prayers for the Stolen and Nadav Lapid's Ahed's Knee, which were noticed at the Cannes Film Festival, Majid Majid's ', Levan Koguashvili's Georgian film Brighton 4th, which won awards at multiple festivals will be the highlights in the category.
Two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero, a film which is an unusual combination of drama, moral fable and a thriller, Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging and Carlos Suara’s musical drama The King of All the World, will also be keenly looked forward to by movie buffs.
The works of 23 women filmmakers will be part of the world cinema category this year. Among them, Maria Schrader's film I'm Your Man, which explores various facets of what it means to be a human in the modern age, is one of the most talked about.
Two Indian films have made it to this category—Natesh Hegde’s debut film Pedro and Two Friends by Prasun Chatterjee. Pedro revolves around the events following the accidental killing of a cow, throwing light on themes such as the struggle against exploitation, exclusion, and prejudice.
Blerta Basholli’s Albanian drama Hive, about a widow’s fight against a patriarchal system, Manolo Nieto’s Spanish drama The Employer and the Employee, which discusses the convoluted relationship of people with happiness, freedom and work, Bolat Kalymbetov's Mukagali, a biopic of the Kazakh poet who became the symbol of the nation’s struggle for independence, and Péter Kerekes' 107 Mothers, which depicts real-life stories of motherhood in Ukraine across society, are some of the acclaimed movies that will be screened under this category.