The organizers of the BMO International Film Festival of South Asia (IFFSA) Toronto 2022 have announced the line-up of films for the upcoming edition, which will be held at various venues across the Greater Toronto Area from 11 to 21 August.
The 11th edition of the event will be an 11-day cinematic event which includes the screening of 120 features and shorts in 22 languages along with masterclasses, workshops and special events.
Chhello Show review: Nostalgic look at a bygone era of cinema through a child’s eyes
Gurvinder Singh’s Punjabi-language feature Adh Chanani Raat, Mostafa Sarwar Farooki’s No Land’s Man and Pan Nalin’s Chhello Show are the opening films of the festival.
The Orphanage, Rehana Maryam Noor, The Terrace, Pedro, Once Upon A Time In Calcutta, Saturday Afternoon, Dug Dug, Palyad, Shoebox, No Land Beneath The Feet, Deep6, Gandhi & Company and Invisible Demons are in the line-up of award-winning films being screened at this year’s festival.
Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar are the guests of honour at the festival and are scheduled to hold masterclasses at the event, along with filmmakers Anup Singh and Gurvinder Singh, amongst others.
IFFSA ambassador Anup Singh said, “We return to the big screen at IFFSA, where boundless space of cinema once again allows us to expand our body and mind, and we might now as birds for so long in a cage unfold our unused wings to soar through the enchantments of our earth, and celebrate ourselves, our endurance and all the little gestures of mutual regard and caring that helped us live as a community even when we could not sit next to each other during the last two years of COVID in our lives.”
Although the festival is taking place physically, a select number of films will be available for free viewing via the festival’s Virtual Theatre.