Spielberg's film to open short films festival

Spielberg's film to open short films festival

Steven Spielberg and Shoah Foundation's 90-minute Oscar winning documentary, The Last Days by James Moll will be the inaugural film at the Mumbai International Film Festival for documentary, short and animation films (MIFF) at the Nehru Centre on Thursday.

The Festival introduces for the first time an international video competition section. The section includes films by Roger Blonder (The Common Sense, Of the Wisdom Tree, an animation film), Maree Delofski (A Calcutta Christmas, a film on the Tollygunge Home for the Elderly at Calcutta), and Hug Piper (The Post) whose award winning work has featured on BBC.

The fete also comprises retrospectives of seven great directors including the Dutch master Bert Hanstra, the Australian documentary film maker Ferry Tadax and his Cannes award winning film Sonne Halt Aribam Shyam Sharma from Manipur.

There is also a retrospective of Japanese master Renzo Kinoshita's films including Geba Geba Show Time, a 90 minute comedy with animation spliced into liveaction shots and Pica Don, a 10 minute animation film about the tragic consequences of Hiroshima.

Wim Wenders film, Buena Vista Social Club, a 100 minute documentary will be one of the closing films of MIFF 2000. The second closing film is Mani Kaul's latest work Bojh, a 10-minute Animation is represented by the third closing film by Arun Gorade whose film, Education Only Her Future, India's first clay animation film.