By Alex Deleon, <film festivals.com>
INNSBRUCK in the Tyrolean Alps, a slice of Austria wedged in between southern Germany and northern Italy -- A stone's throw from the famous Brenner Pass where Hitler met Mussolini in the spring of 1940 -- is a city better known as a venue for the Winter Olympics than as the venue of a modest film festival. However, the Int'l Film Festival of Innsbruck established by Dr. HELMUT Groshut 23 years ago, dedicated largely to the counter cultures and lesser known alternative film cultures of countries from the four corners of the earth, has been a treasure trove of discoveries from Day One. Three films seen yesterday were two dazzling eye-openers from Pakistan and Kazakhstan, plus a major new work from the little known Malayalam language film industry in deepest south India by leading Kerala director and festival special guest Shaji n. Karun, 62.
The first film, "Good Morning Pakistan" opens an entire new page on the poorly understood and highly maligned nuclear bastion of islam, Pakistan, and introduces a fantastic new feminine screen presence, 23 year old Model turned actress AMNA ILYAS. We will no doubt be seeing more of her soon! Only 77 minute In length but so full of striking events and personalities that it seems twice as long. Director Sabiha Sumar Applies Occam's Razor with unerring sharpness to a story that could have run three hours~~this is a film which must be seen far more widely!
A dazzling discovery from a nation whose films are hardy ever seen outside of their home territory.
"The First Rains of Spring" is a 180 degree opposite leisurely study of the ordinary daily life of an isolated family of sheep herders out on the central Asian steppes with some odd twists and turns reminiscent of recent Mongolian masterpieces. In Kazakh and Russian, but directed primarily by a Japanese Kazakhophile, Shinju SANO. Utterly charming and unimposing but fully satisfying in every way. Another discovery.
Finally, "SWAPAANAM" is a Bollywood length study (120 mins. with intermission) of a little known percussion musical form (Chanda drumming) in the person of a gifted drummer so obsessed with his art that he goes mad, leaves his wife and becomes a kind of cross dresser with googles in a highly specialized musical milieu, ending up in a mental asylum conflagration. Definitely not for every taste but a large scale window on another way of life in Indiaand another way of film making. In subsequent days a bakers dozen of Indian films from all eras will be screened to commemorate the centennial celebration of Indian cinema starting with Satjajit Ray's Pater Panchali, 1955, with other landmark films by Guru Dutt, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen.
Fastening seat belt for what looks like it's going to be a for a hot ride through new silver screen territory here in the Tyrolean High Country.