Prateek Vats 'Eeb Allay Ooo!' to open 2019 DIFF

Prateek Vats' "Eeb Allay Ooo!", about a young migrant who takes up the job of mimicking langurs in the national capital, will open the eighth edition of Dharamshala International Film Festival, the organisers announced on Wednesday.

Critically-acclaimed director Geetanjali Rao's animated feature "Bombay Rose" will be the closing film at the festival, which is held annually in the picturesque mountain town of McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala.

The film has previously toured globally, at Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival, before its India premiere at Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star.

Both Vats and Rao will be attending the festival and so is actor Adil Hussain, who will hold an acting workshop for aspiring artistes on the sidelines of the film gala.

The 2019 lineup also includes fiction and documentary features "About Love", "Aise Hee", "Birha", "Jallikattu", "Khanaur", "Oh, That's Bhanu" and "Yeh Freedom Life".

International filmmakers Jesse Alk (USA), Kazuhiro Soda (Japan), Samuel Weniger (Switzerland) are bring their respective features -- "Pariah Dog", "Inland Sea" and "Golden Age" -- to the festival.

Indian directors Ekta Mittal, Gurvinder Singh, Kislay, Lijo Jose Pellissery, Priya Sen, RV Ramani, and Vinod Kamble will also be in attendance during the festival.

"Every year, we try and stay true to the same principles that we set out for DIFF when we started the festival eight years ago: to select films that combine a deeply personal vision with themes that resonate with our times. This year is no different, and hopefully our line-up, which has been carefully and painstakingly curated, will showcase some of the incredible diversity of filmmaking talent on offer in the world today," festival director Ritu Sarin said in a statement.

"DIFF is also a place where filmmakers and film lovers can interact in an informal yet engaged way, and with our move back to the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts this year, where all of DIFF's screenings and events will be contained within close distance of each other, we hope to create an even more intimate space for such exchanges," she added.

The 2019 Dharamshala International Film Festival will be held from November 7 to 10.