IFFK to be held at four venues across Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram: Owing to the pandemic situation, the much-acclaimed International Film festival of Kerala (IFFK) will be held from February 10 onwards in four places. This is the silver jubilee of the film festival.

The festival will be held at Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam,Palakkad and Thalassery.

Covid negative certificates are mandatory for people to participate in the festival and the delegate fee is reduced to Rs 750.

The festival will be inaugurated at Thiruvananthapuram on February 10 and will conclude at Palakkad on March 5. The festival will be inaugurated on February 10 at Thiruvananthapuram and will be conducted here from February 10 to 14, at Ernakulam from February 17 to 21, From February 23 to 27 at Thalassery and from March 1 to 5 at Palakkad.

This was announced by the state minister for culture AK Balan here today.

The minister said that the film festival which was generally held in December each year will be postponed to February 10 owing to the Covid pandemic. The minister said that 14,000 delegates used to attend the festival each year but owing to Covid this is not possible and hence the film festival is to be conducted at four venues. He said that movies will be screened at five theatres at each district.

While speaking to mediapersons Balan said: "All the cultural festivals as part of the film festival are cancelled owing to the Covid pandemic. Meet the Director, Press meet, Master class and discussion with foreign guests will be conducted online".

The minister also said that IFFK will have competition section films, Malayalam cinema today, Indian cinema now, Kaleidoscope, Retrospective and Homage sections. Four films will be screened in a theatre a day.

The Kerala State Chalachithra Academy who are the hosts of the festival will have antigen testing facilities at the venues in association with the state health ministry. Delegates are expected to mandatorily produce Covid negative certificate taken fourty eight hours before the festival.