Pawlikowski’s Fatherland to open International Film Festival of India in Goa

Fatherland, by the Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski, will open the 57th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, which runs from 20 to 28 November. Organisers presented the programme in Goa on 13 November, the Indian news agency PTI reported.

Fatherland follows the Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika as they travel through Germany in 1949. Pawlikowski won the best director award for the film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The festival closes with We Are All Strangers by the Singaporean director Anthony Chen.

What is on the programme

This year’s theme is “Stories Without Borders”. According to PTI, the programme includes 159 international films from 86 countries and 76 Indian films in 18 languages. The Hindi-language film Dhurandhar opens the Indian Panorama section, and India’s Ramayana opens a section of films from the BRICS countries.

Spain is the country of honour, with four films including Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas. The festival will also mark the centenary of the Polish director Andrzej Wajda with five of his films, among them Ashes and Diamonds and Kanal. Two new sections are devoted to animation and to films about film-making.

Screenings will take place on 13 screens in four Goan towns: Panaji, Porvorim, Margao and Ponda. The festival is organised by India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting with the Goa state government.