Thiruvananthapuram: The 27th edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) will honour Iranian filmmaker Mahnaz Mohammadi. 32 out of the 185 films being screened at the festival will be directed by women from 17 countries.
The Spirit of Cinema award was introduced last year and was presented to Kurdish filmmaker Lisa Calan.
Iranian filmmaker Mahnaz Mohammadi's first documentary 'Women Without Shadows' is about homeless and abandoned women in a shelter home. Her other project 'Travelogue' is her interviewing the passengers on a train. The people in this documentary were leaving Iran at the time. Her first fiction film 'Son-Mother' is about a widow with two children who receives a marriage proposal that can help her financial situation.
She said women have always been the biggest minority in the world and cinema can be used as a medium to talk about their pain and to try to make a difference, she told the IFFK media centre. "Fearlessness is not something you have by birth but what you need to acquire," she added.
The prestigious film festival will be held between December 9-16 in Thiruvananthapuram.
Out of the 32 films directed by women, 25 will be screened in the World Cinema category. Klondike by Marina Er Gorbach is about Ukrainian women. Other notable entries are One Fine Morning by Mia Hansen Love, The Blue Caftan by Maryam Touzani, I Have Electric Dreams by Valentina Maurel, Corsage by Marie Kreutzer, Gir Picture by Alli Hapazalo, Alcarra by Carla Simon, and Rule 34 by Julia Murat.
Both sides of the Blade by Claire Denis will be screened under the Auteur Odes category and Zwigato by Nandita Das is in the Kaleidoscope section.