Kochi: The Kochi regional edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) would begin on Friday. Bangladeshi movie ‘Rehana Maryam Noor’ directed by Abdulla Mohammad Saad would be the opening film of the festival.  A total of 60 films would be screened in the five-day-long festival under the categories, International Competition, World Cinema, Kaleidoscope, Malayalam Cinema Today, Rediscovering the Classis, Critics’ Choice, Indian Cinema Now, Framing Conflict and Homage. 

‘Money Has Four Legs’ (Myanmar) directed by Maung Sun and ‘Hava Maryam Ayesha’ (Afghan) directed by Sahraa Karimi would be screened under the category of ‘Framing Conflict’ which features survival stories of humans, fighting the atrocities of war. 

‘Yuni’ (Indonesia) by Kamila Andini, ‘Sughra and His Sons’ (Azerbaijan) by Ilgra Najaf, ‘Avaasavyooham’ (Indian) by Krishnand, ‘Camila Comes out Tonight’ (Argentina) by Ines Maria Barrionuevo, ‘Forbidden’ (India) by Tara Ramanujan, ‘Clara Sola’ (Sweden) by Nathalie Alvarez Mesen , ‘Koozhangal’ by Vinothraj P S, ‘Captain Volkonogov Escaped’ (Russia) by Aleksey Chupov and Natasha Merkulova, You Resemble (US) by Dina Amer, ‘Anatolean Leopard’ (Germany) by Emre Kayis, ‘Let It Be Morning’ (Israel) by Eran Kolirin, ‘Murina’ (Croatia) by Antoneta Kusijanovic and ‘Costa Brava Lebanon’ (Denmark) by Mounia Akl would be screened under International Competition category. 

  Neem Annapurna by Buddhadeb Das Gupta, ‘Marupakkam’ by K S Sethumadhavan, ‘Vidaparayum Munpe’ by Mohan, ‘Shantham’ by Jayaraj and ‘Ivan Mekharoopan’ by P Balachandran would be screened under Homage category. 

The festival is being organized by Kerala Chalachithra Academi with the support of the department of cultural affairs. Saritha, Savitha and Kavitha theatres are the venues of the fest in the city. The opening ceremony of the fest would be held at 9 am. Ten films would be screened on the first day of the fest. 

The detailed programmes of the opening and closing ceremony would be decided on Thursday after a meeting of officials of IFFK to be held at Kochi. The organisers have already opened selfie corners in different areas of the city as part of the campaign for the film festival.