Johannesburg: Some of the best and rarest films in Indian regional languages will be screened at the Indian International Film Festival of South Africa (IIFFSA) from tomorrow.
IFFSA aims to bring together the Indian and South African film industries to promote the diverse cultures of both countries.
A total of 25 titles in Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu and Tamil - all subtitled in English - will be shown at Ster-Kinekor cinemas in Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria from January 17 to 23.
"This genre of cinema is an important focus for us, and it is pleasing to know that we can now offer not just Bollywood (Hindi) and Tamil cinema as we have been doing for a while now, but also other languages at our cinemas.
"This has become possible because of the digital conversion across all our sites that enables us to access more digital prints and not have to wait for 35mm reels any longer," said Doug Place, Marketing Executive of Ster-Kinekor, at the launch of IFFSA in Johannesburg.
Terwadker said the aim of IFFSA is to use cinema as a medium to discover and train local actors and filmmakers as well as starting community development projects in both India and South Africa.
This second leg of the exercise will result in one young South African filmmaker getting a scholarship to study at the world-renowned Whistling Woods Studios established by Indian filmmaker Subhash Ghai in India.
IFFSA Awards, a brain child of Rajiv Terwadker of Uttkarsh Projects, will take place at the Lyric Theatre at Gold Reef City in Johannesburg on Saturday night.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, January 16, 2014, 20:23
