Legendary documentary makers at International Documentary and Short Film Festival
Thiruvananthapuram: There will be more depth to the 10th International Documentary and Short Film Festival, which will kick-off on June 16. Some of the biggest names in world cinema, the prolific German auteur Wim Wenders and the South African master Raoul Peck, will be featured at the IDSFFK.
Peck’s 93-minute documentary I Am Not Your Negro, based on poet and novelist James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript, created quite a splash at this year’s Oscars. Narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, the film explores the history of racism in the United States through civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. It was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards.
The IDSFFK Homage section will feature some of the most celebrated short and long documentaries by the master of German New Wave, Wim Wenders. The German filmmaker’s documentaries are unique as most of them are explorations into the minds of some of the most celebrated artists and filmmakers of our time.
Lightning Over Water, for instance, is about the last days of Nicholas Ray, the maker of Rebel Without a Cause. Room 666 interviews biggies like Steven Spielberg, Jean-Luc Godard, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. During the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wenders set up a static camera in room 666 of the Hotel Martinez and provided selected film directors a list of questions to answer concerning the future of cinema.
The film was later screened out of competition at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Tokyo Ga is a documentary about Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu. Wenders had also made documentaries on music, including on Blues musicians and Cuban musicians.
Besides, there will be shorts that won big at Vienna Short Film Festival, one of the most prestigious short film festivals in the world. Another big attraction will be ‘8 ½ Intercuts – Life and Films of KG George’, about a remarkable filmmaker who seems to have been forgotten in his own lifetime. The documentary will attempt to analyse the relevance of his major films and understand his unique personality.
