Kirti Kulhari's First Production 'Kinaare' in Dharamshala; Rima Das's 'Not a Hero' to Open Festival

Kirti Kulhari's first feature film as producer, 'Kinaare' ('The Shore'), will be screened at the 15th Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF), which opens with 'Not a Hero' directed by Rima Das in Berlin. The festival runs from 29 October to 1 November at the Tibetan Children's Village in Upper Dharamshala, with an online edition running from 2 to 9 November. Writing and direction […]

Kirti Kulhari's first feature film as a producer, Kinaare (The Beaches), will be screened at the 15th Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF), opening with Rima Dass's Berlin Award winner Not a Hero.

The festival is held from October 29 to November. 1 at the Tibetan Children's Village in Upper Dharamshala, with an online version to follow from November 2-9.

Written and directed by brothers Akbar Quadri and Azam Quadri, Kinaree stars Kolhari as Ameena, a single woman in a village near Delhi who spends her days looking after her elderly parents and the family home. Her cousin, played by Azam Quadri, shows up without warning after 15 years away, and his visit brings back the events that once tore the family apart. Amina has made peace with the past until he left. Rajeev Siddhartha, Alka Amin and Ravi Tanja complete the cast. Related stories of the video game movie "Battlefield" by Christopher McQuarrie and Michael B. Jordan, Sony in conversation with the earth

Kulhari produced the film through his banner Kintsukuroi Films with Abhishek Koka and Maansi Gupti as co-producers. Popular in Variety

Kolhari said: "It's a script that really resonated with me. It's a simple, heartwarming and elegant film. I find all these qualities in Iranian films - which I've always really loved - so when this came to me, I knew I had to make it." "That's exactly what I wanted to make this film: independently, make it the way I see it, the way we all see it collectively."

Siddhartha said every actor hopes the script values the written word and also pushes them to explore the spaces between the words. "And with 'Kinaare' I have to do that as an actor. I feel 'Kinaare' has a universal theme that anyone who sees it will definitely be touched, moved and a little changed from within after the experience," he said.

The film crew includes cinematographer Arjun Sundaram, music composer Mohan Kannan, editor Bakul Mathyani and sound designer Sanjay Chaturvedi.

"Not a Hero" co-produced by India and Singapore will have its South Asian premiere as the opening night film of the festival. The film premiered at the Berlinale earlier this year, where it won the Special Crystal Bear Award in the Generation Kplus section, and later won Best Independent Film at the Melbourne Indian Film Festival. He has also played Zelin, Zurich and Busan.

The story of the film is about a boy who traveled from the city to his family's ancestral village. There he meets a distant aunt, befriends a horse and falls in with a group of local kids, finding both a life away from screens and a courage he never knew existed.

Das is known for 'Village Rockstars', 'Bulbul Can Sing', 'Tora's Husband' and 'Village Rockstars 2'. His films have been screened in more than 150 festivals and have received more than 75 awards.

The latest additions to the DIFF collection also include Don Palatara's The Uncertainty Principle, about nomadic youth looking for a career in cinema, and Cool Ladies' Club, a documentary co-directed by Shilpi Gulati and 10 women from Mumbai's eastern suburbs, who made the film together over 18 months.

Also, the family drama "Shadowbox" by Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi with Berlin Calcutta Collection, the Polish-Hungarian title "Budapest Diaries" by Raphael Kaplinski and "Shadow Box" by Emi Imanishi have been screened in the Western Sahara.

They join titles from the festival's initial lineup, including Gurvinder Singh's Locarno, the Indo-French co-production Rahmat, which weaves together three stories set in present-day Punjab. "Mooriyane", a short series set in 1990s Old Delhi, is Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Shanak Sen's feature debut. And Oliver Lax wins "Sirat".

The first wave also includes the Thai family pilgrimage drama Sompot Chidgasornpongse "9 Temples to Heaven" by Sara Dosa, the Icelandic collection "Time and Water", R. Gowtham's Berlin sad drama "Members of the Problematic Family" and Dennis Harvey and Lars Fools folk music. Samreen Farooqui and Shabani Hasanwalia's documentary "Stare Mishini" follows Nawazuddin Siddiqui as he studies the real-life inhabitant of the room he uses when filming "Stare" by Dibakar Banerjee in the 2013 Bombay Talkies series.

DIFF was founded by filmmakers Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam. This year's edition also runs its own fellowship program with seven people mentored by Bhutanese director Dechen Rader and independent Indian filmmakers Umesh Kulkarni and Dominic Sangma.