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30 th Durban International Film Festival

23 July to 2 August 2009

Indian cinema once again has a strong presence at the 30 th Durban International Film Festival which kicks off on 23 July and runs until 2 August at cinemas and alternate venues throughout Durban .

In a fine year for Indian cinema, the festival will present the works of new talents as well as master storytellers from India . The fine actress, Nandita Das, who is well known for her sublime performances in, amongst others, Fire , Earth and Before The Rains , makes her directorial debut with Firaaq , a powerful condemnation of religious violence. Also a debut, The Damned Rain by Satish Manwar is a stirring film about Indian farmers driven to suicide by debts and drought. The third Indian debut is very different. The hilarious Tamil Western Quick Gun Murugan by Shashanka Ghosh is wickedly clever and riotously funny, as we follow our vegetarian hero Murugan as he tries to save the world from a non-veg villain.

Alongside these striking new talents, the festival will present two established filmmakers. Priyadarshan is well known for his commercial hits, but his Kanchivaram is a politically-charged and poetic film. The great Bengali filmmaker, Rituparno Ghosh, will present the World Premiere of his new film After Words , starring Bipasha Basu and Prosenjit, which looks at the troubled relationship between a reckless poet and his anxious wife.

After Words tells the story of Radhika (Basu) and Indranil (Prosenjit), a married couple in crisis. Indranil, a poet and an engineer, pays little attention to his wife and to his financial responsibilities. This drives Radhika into the arms of photographer Shekhar. An unexpected tragedy forces Radhika to learn new things about Indranil and their relationship through his poetry, whose words infuse the film with romance and lyricism. A complex story told with simplicity and elegance, this is another triumph for one of the masters of Bengali cinema. Ghosh will attend the festival to present the film to audiences.

The Damned Rain takes place in a village devastated by the epidemic of farmer suicides which has been gripping India . When a farmer's wife learns about her neighbour's suicide, she begins to worry that her husband, who is struggling to survive the effects of drought and merciless moneylenders, will take his own life. Together with her son and her mother-in-law, she constantly monitors him in order to prevent a possible tragedy. The result is a serious film threaded with dark humour. Superbly scripted, this is a surprisingly mature and understated debut from Manwar. The film's producer Prashant Pethe will attend the festival.

In Kanchivaram , named for the famous silk-producing region, a poor weaver named Vengadam makes a public promise that his young daughter will one day be married in a silk sari; a promise met with derision by his neighbours. Nevertheless, determined to make good his promise to the future, he starts to steal a thread a day. As the years pass Vengadam becomes a spokesman for his fellow weavers and becomes increasingly politicised. The result is a narrative that is as rich in texture as the cloth produced by the film's weavers. Priyadarshan, responsible a number of Bollywood hits, has made a beautiful and stridently political film.

Quick Gun Murugan is a genre-bending spoof that blends a rigorous intelligence with an enthusiastic anti-corporatism. The film opens in rural India , where the vegetarian inhabitants of a peaceful town have been brought to their knees by the evil Rice-Plate Reddy and his carnivorous bandits. Murugan, a gun-toting vegetarian and sworn protector of cows, attempts to stop Reddy's reign of terror. But he is killed in battle, only to be reincarnated in contemporary Mumbai, where the karmic cowboy must prevent his nemesis from achieving world domination with his McDosa chain of meat-based restaurants. An instant comic classic… Mind it!

One of the most acclaimed actresses in contemporary Indian cinema, Nandita Das makes her first visit to DIFF with her directorial debut Firaaq which is set against the sectarian violence which took place in Gujarat in 2002 in which 3 000 Muslims were killed. The film tells several separate stories of disparate individuals who are bound together by a sense of loss and fear in the face of pointless terror. This directorial debut from Das is both a terrifying account of one the many dark periods in human history and an exquisite work of humanist cinema whose narrative remains urgently topical.

Also note a fascinating Dutch-made documentary Babaji, an Indian Love Story, about an elderly Indian man's rather eccentric preparation for death where he will meet his dearly departed wife. DIFF's short film programme includes Supriyo Sen's Wagah , a brilliant gem about the lowering of the flags ceremony on the border between India and Pakistan – this highly humorous film won the Berlin Today award in 2009.

Principal screening venues of the festival are the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre; Nu Metro Cinecentre - Suncoast; Ster Kinekor Junction – Musgrave; Cinema Nouveau - Gateway; Ekhaya Multi-Arts Centre in KwaMashu; and The Royal Hotel, with further screenings in township areas where cinemas are non-existent.

Programme booklets with the full screening schedule and synopses of all the films are available free at cinemas, Computicket, and other outlets. Call 031 2602506 or 031 2601650 or visit www.cca.ukzn.ac.za for further details.

In a year deeply constrained by funding cutbacks festival organisers the Centre for Creative Arts (UKZN) highlight the important role played by principal funders the The National Film and Video Foundation, Stichting Doen, HIVOS, KwaZulu-Natal Department of Economic Development, German Embassy, Goethe Institute of South Africa, City of Durban, Industrial Development Corporation, Department of Arts and Culture (Film, Video and Sound Archives) and the support from East Coast Radio, Durban Film Office, the Consulate General of India, and other valued sponsors and partners.

ends

For Press Office contact:

Sharlene Versfeld

Tel: 031 201 1650

Fax: 031 201 1654

E-mail: sharlene@versfeld.co.za