Ivan Ayr's Meel Patthar makes it to the Singapore festival line-up

Ivan Ayr's Meel Patthar (Milestone) is the rare Indian entry in the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) line-up for 2020.

The festival will take place from 26 November till 6 December and will be a hybrid of in-person and online activities.

The SGIFF has been considerably scaled down owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, with organizers unveiling a line-up of 70 films this week.

With the local audience the key target, a majority of the films will be shown in theatres across Singapore while others will be made available for viewing online.

The SGIFF will open with Tan Bee Thiam's debut satirical feature, Tiong Bahru Social Club. Ayr's film will join the works of other Asian directors in the Competition section.

Meel Patthar has already been screened at the 77th Venice International Film Festival, along with Chaitanya Tamhane's The Disciple (2020).

Ayr's film will be joined by A Balance by Japan’s Harumoto Yujiro, The Cloud In Her Room by China’s Zheng Lu Xinyuan, Beginning by Georgia’s Dea Kulumbegashvili, Geranium by Turkey’s Cagil Bocut, No Love For The Young by Malaysia’s Ridhwan Saidi and The Wasteland by Iran’s Ahmad Bahrami. The last named won Best Film in the Orizzonti section at the Venice festival.

The Asian Vision section at Singapore will feature another Venice awardee in Genus Pan (2020), which won Filipino director Lav Diaz the Best Director award, also in the Orizzonti section. The Cinema Today line-up includes the Venice festival's Golden Lion winner, Nomadland (2020), by Chloe Zao.

Entertainment website Variety.com quoted Emily Hoe, the festival's executive director, as saying, "This year is definitely unique, but SGIFF will continue to be a cultural institution that inspires, creates and shapes the direction of film across the region. It was our priority to ensure that the festival programme and budgets were put together without compromising on artistic integrity or rigour."