The festival, `celebrating the artist', has been organised by Orient Express, who initiated the celebrations which commenced earlier this year, and the Asian film quarterly `cinemaya'. It will be inaugurated by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh on August 20 at the India Habitat Centre in the presence of the French Ambassador Claude Blanchemaison, who will be the chief guest.

Renowned danseuse Shovana Narayan will perform the invocatory dance followed by the screening of `Van Gogh' by well known French director Maurice Pialat. Naresh Kapuria is creating the ambience of Khajuraho at the venue during the five-day festival which will conclude on August 24.

The other foreign films, all on painters, are: `The life and death of VanGogh' by Australian filmmaker Paul Cox, `Andrei Rubles' by Russian Andrej Tarkovsky, Georgian film `Pirosmani' by Georgi Shengalaya, and Iran's `The autumn alley'. The Indian films include `Tansen' by Jayant Desai made in the early forties and `Baiju Bawra' by Vijay Bhatt made in 1952. The others are `Sant Tukaram' by Fatehlal Damle (1936) and the more recent Mani Kaul's Siddheshwari'.

Addressing a press meet here, Kantilal Poddar of Orient Express and `Cinemaya' editor Aruna Vasudev said yesterday evening that it was unfortunate that very few films were available on the Khajuraho temples, and the few documentaries that were available were either not in film format or not of good standard. It had therefore been decided to devote the festival to artists as the temples were all about sculpture and art.

Similarly, very few biographical feature films had been made on artists in India and the rest of Asia. The main reason for not holding the festival in Khajuraho was that the town lacked good screeningfacilities. However, some films made in video format may be shown there later.

The temples at Khajuraho were built between 900 and 1100 AD by the Chandela dynasty. Some of the temples are a thousand years old and others will reach the 1000th mark later this year or early next year. Only 20 temples remain in their full glory out of the 85 built. One more temple, probably the largest, has just been excavated and the process of unearthing it is still on.