Afghan movie "Parting" to open IFFK

Navid Mahmoudi-directed Afghan movie 'Parting', which revolves around the hardships faced by refugees, will mark the beginning of the 21st edition of International Film Festival of Kerala here on December 9.
An Afghan-Iran co-production, the movie was Afghanistan's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the 89th Academy Awards, Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, organiser of the event, said.
The country in focus of the week-long gala this year is Kazakhstan and five films-- 'Daughter-in-law', 'Little Brother', 'Qazaq Eli', 'Student' and 'The Old Man' from there would be screened in this category, they said.
A total of six films on the lives of celebrated artistes including legendary painter Vincent van Gogh are included in the 'Life of Artists' section.

Under the 'Homage' category, movies of Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda, Malayalam director Rajesh Pillai and actor Kalabhavan Mani and Kalpana would be screened, they said.
The 'Retrospective' section will have five films including "Opol" and "Panitheeratha Veedu" by veteran filmmaker K S Sethumadhavan.
As many as 185 films from 62 countries would be screened under various categories in the festival, scheduled to conclude on December 16, academy sources added.