Navrasa Duende World Movie Festival Celebrates 100 Years Of World Cinema

Navrasa Duende, an arts and entertainment venture committed to facilitating the convergence of global art forms in one place was geared to curate the 4th edition of its World Movie Festival. The first leg of the film carnival, which was a two-day affair, was held on November 16-17, 2019, at Siri Fort. The line-up for the inaugural screening features acclaimed classics of the World Cinema including Apocalypse Now directed by Francis Ford Coppola's, Tokyo Story directed by Yasujiro Ozu's, The Marriage of Maria Braun directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder's, Charulata directed by Satyajit Ray, The Passion of Joan of Arc directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, and Pulp Fiction directed by Quentin Tarantino.

Navrasa Duende World Movie Festival aims to initiate a larger Indian audience to World Cinema. It facilitates film enthusiasts across all age groups to share the movie-watching experience with prominent movie connoisseurs. Navrasa Duende World Movie Festival 2019-20 is a not-for-profit edition which was attended by an elite gathering comprising Navrasa Duende Movie Club members, special guests, film critics, and media. The screenings were held every quarter, covering six films in a span of two days and also facilitated frequent interaction amongst the attendees.

2019-20 edition included a collection of movies that are considered to be milestones of World Cinema across six landmark movements and events: the golden age of silent films of the 1920s, the Poetic Realism of the ’30s, the Italian Neo-Realism as well as the French New Wave of the ’50s and the ’60s. The selection also features revered contemporary classics as well as independent filmmaking achievements from India and Hollywood that embellish the cinematic landscape of the late twentieth and the twenty-first century.

“Through Navrasa Duende World Movie Festivals, we aim to reflect the evolution that cinematic art has witnessed in 100 years since 1920. As such, we have focussed on narrative technique and craft, genres, technical innovation, historical, geopolitical, and social contents as well as context, among other things,” said Dinesh B Singh – Festival Director. “We also considered factors such as a film’s popularity and timelessness quotient while making the selection. The objective is to initiate a larger Indian audience in World Cinema, and introduce film aficionados to the immense value that lies beyond Hollywood and Bollywood.”

Explaining the selection process, he added, “Film is a director’s medium. Therefore, our movie selection focusses on directors, especially those who have been an institution in themselves, having defined and redefined the cinematic landscape. Our broad classification puts them into three categories. The first includes those who went about filmmaking keeping the audience in mind without sacrificing their craft and aesthetics. The second is made by those who combine mind-bending craft with relatively simpler narratives and expect the viewer to engage with the film to have the best film-watching experience. The third class is exemplified by those who believe in ‘personal cinema’ and demand the complete suspension of disbelief from their audience without the expectation of any pay-off.”

Building on the overwhelming response the past editions have received from the audience, this year the festival features a magnified range of classics from across the globe. Some of the big names whose works were screened at Navrasa Duende Movie Festival 2019-20 include Robert Wise, John Badham, Michael Haneke, Bimal Roy, David Lean, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Steven Spielberg, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Asghar Farhadi.

Movies by auteurs of World Cinema such as Wong Kar Wai, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Francis Ford Coppola, Yasujirō Ozu, Stanley Kubrick, Darren Aronofsky, Kundan Shah, Pedro Almodóvar, Quentin Tarantino, Satyajit Ray, and Sergei Eisenstein are also included in the line-up. The diverse array of movies made by the greats of the World Cinema accentuates the ethos of Navrasa Duende World Movie Festival: to mainstream the classic by celebrating cinema of all kinds and genres while providing the Indian audience with a wholesome, entertaining, educating, and stimulating experience.

Some of the prominent speaker in last addition names include Ramesh Sharma (Director of New Delhi Times Movie, Won 4 National Award), Gautam Kaul (National Awardee of Best Film Critic), Sudhir Bose (National Awardee of Best Film Critic), Shubra Gupta (Film Critic Indian Express), and various Cultural attaches from Embassies like Goethe Institute, InstitutFrancais, Polish Institut, Japan Foundation. We expect similar participation this year as well.