Monday Oct 29 4:40 PM
Bollywood Trade News Network
Eminent filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, whose film ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE was the opening film of the Third International Eurasia Film Festival at Antalya in Turkey, received a special honour for his contribution to cinema at the Grand finale.
Accepting the honour, Shekhar said Turkey had a very prominent place geographically since it provided the bridge between Europe and Asia which was attempting to reach out to the west. Also honoured - in absentia - was the veteran German actress Hanna Schygulla.
Shekhar's Oscar-winning ELIZABETH I chad also been screened in Antalya some years earlier, but this is the first time that Shekhar had come to the Festival.
By sheer coincidence, both the opening and the closing films of the Third International Eurasia Film Festival, the international section of 44th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, had an Indian presence though neither is an Indian film.
While ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE, Shekhar Kapur's sequel to his Oscar winning ELIZABETH I, was the closing film, the opening film "Lust, Caution" ("SE JIE"), the latest picture of Oscar triumphant Taiwanese-American Ang Lee, screened on 19 October stars Indian actor Anupam Kher in a short role.
Though there was only one entry from India in the Festival - FROZEN by Shivajee Chandrabhushan, the Indian presence could also be some other films: THE FRANCO-BRITISH FAR NORTH has been directed by India-born Asif Kapadia and the American-British co-production A MIGHTY HEART by Michael Winterbottom stars Archie Panjabi who is of Indian origin. The other Indian presence was in terms of Neel Chaudhuri, who has earlier been the Deputy Editor of the Cinemaya Asian film quarterly published from Delhi. He was a member of the Critics Jury. The film YOUTH WITHIN YOUTH by Francis Ford Coppola screened as a Gala Screening had been partly shot in India.
