Other Topics : Art Culture - Fashion - Tourism

Latest & Hot Bollywood Film News : * hourly updation

Back to Bollywood Current News Section

 
Spotlight on Buddha at Osian film festival
Indo-Asian News Service

New Delhi, June 28 (IANS) The year 2006 marks the 2,550th birth anniversary of the Buddha and Osian's-Cinefan 8th Festival Asian Cinema is set to celebrate that by screening films showing his life.

    
                            Advertisement

On July 14, Pan Nalin's "Valley Of Flowers" starring Naseeruddin Shah and Milind Soman will kick-start the festival that aims at nurturing the links between different cultural groups in the country to improve the quality of Indian cinema. 

"Indian films don't have even one percent of share in the world film market. India has not nurtured all the links that join different cultures together, that's why the Indian film market is so weak. Unless fine minds of all cultures come together we can't make good cinema," said Neville Tuli at a press conference here Wednesday.

Films to be screened on the Buddha are "Siddharth", "Angry Monk - Reflections On Tibet", "Little Buddha", "The Last Monk" and "The Sandstorm". 

"The festival is not only about films, it also provides an opportunity to film buffs to discuss the future of Indian cinema - for example what happened to parallel cinema - and what all we should do to improve it," said Aruna Vasudev, the founder of Cinemaya.

The 10-day-long festival will showcase around 125 films from 40 countries depicting diverse cultures spread across Asia. Apart from that some of the best works of Arab cinema will also be screened.

This year 11 films, including Onir's "Bas Ek Pal", Santosh Sivan's "Eternally Secure" and Girish Kasaravalli's "In the Shadow Of The Dog", have been selected for the Indian Competition section.

In the Tribute section, the spotlight will be on Ritwik Ghatak and Stanley Kwan