A film on South Indian Superstar Rajinikanth and his massive fan following is part of the Cinema of the World line-up featuring films from around the world at the Dubai International Film Festival (Diff).
Directed by Rinku Kalsy, the biopic, For The Love of a Man, looks at how the Tamil actor’s fandom is about more than cinema and more about togetherness and identity, portrayed through a star who provides fans with tangible reassurance through his on-screen immortality.
Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase will showcase AN, about a pancake stall manager and his relationship with an odd elderly lady who comes to him looking for work.
Paulina, by Santiago Mitre, is set in Argentina and explores judicial ideologies surrounding violence and gang culture in the country. The film follows its protagonist, Paulina, as she abandons her career as a successful lawyer to become a social activist in a poverty stricken area.
Iranian director Amir Hossein Saghafi’s third feature, The Man Who Became a Horse, is about a father living with his only daughter after her mother passes away. Unwilling to let his daughter leave even after her wedding, the father goes to extreme lengths to see that she remains by his side.
Representing Scandinavian cinema is Icelandic filmmaker Grimur Hakonarson’s Rams, which has already won eight awards in 2015. Set in a remote Icelandic farming valley, the feature follows two brothers who haven’t spoken in 40 years. When the outbreak of a disease threatens their way of life, they are forced to come together and resolve their differences to save their livelihood: their flock of sheep.
Award-winning writer and director Terence Davies presents his latest work, Sunset Song, a film adaption of the Lewis Grassic Gibbon novel of the same name. Set in Scotland, the film is about a young farmer’s daughter, Chris, who dreams of a life outside of her homeland, but as the First World War takes its toll on her community, life is turned upside-down.
French writer, actor and director Samuel Benchetrit joins the line-up with Macadam Stories, a tale of six chance encounters featuring a disabled old man and a night nurse; a troubled actress and a latchkey teen; and an American astronaut and a doting mother.
Winner of two awards at the prestigious Locarno International Film Festival 2015, Indian director Raam Reddy brings his feature film Thithi, a comedy about three generations of sons living in a village in South India. The film depicts the clans’ reactions and goings-on after the death of its eldest member, Century Gowda.
Acclaimed Sri Lankan filmmaker Vimukthi Jayasundara’s Dark in The White Light is set in Colombo and interweaves various stories of fraying bodies, on the threshold of pain and between life and death.
Bosnian director Ines Tanovi’s Our Everyday Life gives insight into the life of a very traditional Bosnian family, the Susics, whose lives begins to fall apart as they try to appreciate the importance of family in life.
Indian director Anu Menon, best known for her short film Ravi Goes to School and her previous feature London Paris New York, comes with her feature Waiting. It’s a story about a retired professor and a terrified young wife whose partners have fallen into a coma. The two meet and in their time of grief they must support each other if they are to stop themselves from falling apart.
Jayro Bustamante makes his return to cinema with his seven-time-award-winning feature Ixcanul Volcano. Set in a coffee plantation on the foothills of an active volcano in Guatemala, the film is centred around Maria, a young 17-year-old Mayan girl whose future lies before her in the form of an arranged marriage despite her dreams of going to “the big city”. However, that all changes when she is bitten by a snake and she is forced to venture out into the modern world to cure the bite.
Diff runs from December 9 to 16. For tickets and schedules, go to diff.ae. The festival’s dedicated customer care number is 363 FILM (3456).
