The 51st International Film Festival of India (IFFI) has unveiled the lineup of international films that will compete in the competition section during nine-day festival beginning January 16. IFFI competition picks comprises the best of feature film from all over the world.

The selected 15 films (three Indian films and 12 international films) will compete for the Golden Peacock (Best Film) as well as Silver Peacock Awards for Best Director and Best Actor (male and female).

Three Indian films, Assamese film Bridge by Kripal Kalita, Chhattisgarhi language film A Dog And His Man by Siddharth Tripathy and Ganesh Vinayakan”s Tamil film Thaen have made to the international competition section from India. All these three films are part  of Indian Panorama selection.

A total of 224 films will be screened under different sections at the 51st edition, which will be organised in a hybrid format in the wake of the pandemic.

Golden Peacock carries a cash prize of Rs 40 lakh while the best director award has a prize of Rs 15 lakh.  The best actor award (male and female) entails a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh each.

COMPLETE LIST OF 51^st IFFI EDITION COMPETITION FILMS

The Domain by Tiago Guedes (Portugal)

The chronicle of a family that owns one of the largest estates in Europe, on the south bank of the River Tagus. The Domain delves deeply into the secrets of their homestead, portraying the historical, political, economic and social life of Portugal, since the 1940s, through the Carnation revolution to these days.

Into The Darkness by Anders Refn (Denmark)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKas0tdCr24

Through a family and the relation between father and son, the film describes the dilemmas of the Danish population during World War 2. Like the government, the farmers and the industry, the father, a successful owner of a big electronics factory, tries to make the best of the situation in order to “keep the wheels rolling”. However, this leads him into a problematic collaboration with the Germans. His son, on the contrary, reacts against the increasing oppression and persecution of Jews and communists by joining the rising resistance movement.

February by KamenKalev (Bulgaria, France)

We follow the life of a man at eight, eighteen and eighty-two years old: in his village, outside the village, in the heat of the sun and the icy snow. The course of his monotonous life seems to be written in advance and meaningless. And yet an invisible force exists in him and in a mysterious way pushes him forward, towards death.

My Best Part by Nicolas Maury (France)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIRjzxL8mmE

Upcoming actor Jérémie is going through an existential crisis. Pathologically jealous and plagued by romantic, professional and familial misadventures, he flees Paris to reset in the country with his mother – who turns out to be more than a little invasive…

I Never Cry by Piotr Domalewski (Poland, Ireland)

After learning about the death of her father, a builder working abroad, the seventeen-year old Ola has to travel to Ireland to bring his body back to Poland.

La Veronica by Leonardo Medel (Chile)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BJ_XawLwz4

Anchored by rising star Mariana di Girolamo, La Veronica is a provocative un-fairy tale, revealing what could be the ugly reality behind the fantasies of social media celebrities. The camera is always focused on the face of the protagonist, as if studying her expression, striving to find the truth, and trying to understand her twisted inner mind.

Light For The Youth by Shin Su-won (South Korea)

A young man works at the bond collection call center. He is polite, pure and sincere at a glance. On the other hand, the director of the center is not. The director’s daughter is having a hard time preparing for a job. Light for the Youth revolves around these people. At the beginning of the movie, the young man and the director of the center seem to meet each other accidentally on the rooftop, a resting place, and easily succeed in communicating regardless of the difference in rank. However, a big incident soon happens to the young man who visited a house to collect bonds, and the situation quickly falls into a state of thrill and tragedy.

Red Moon Tide by Lois Patiño (Spain)

As he proved in his previous works, including Coast of Death and Night Without Distance, films that take place on borders between countries, or between life and death, Spanish filmmaker Lois Patiño is singularly brilliant at creating transfixing, ghostly images of enormous power. With Red Moon Tide, he has made his most haunting film yet, a journey into a phantom world, set on Spain’s Galician coast, where Rubio, a diver who retrieved bodies from shipwrecks, has gone missing. The small seaside community, made up of both the living and the long deceased, mourn his absence, in a series of exquisitely composed tableaux that turn images of everyday lives into the mythical.

Dream About Sohrab by Ali Ghavitan (Iran)

Ali Qavitan, the independent director of the Iranian cinema, has decided to make a film about Sohrab Sepehri, a contemporary Iranian painter and poet, due to his apparent resemblance to him.

The Dogs Didn’t Sleep Last Night by RaminRasouli (Afghanistan, Iran)

In a remote area in Afghanistan, stories of the lives of a young shepherdess, a birdcatcher boy and a mourning teacher are intertwined after their school is burnt down. The young shepherdess takes the risk of saving a woman US soldier after a helicopter crash; the birdcatcher boy takes shelter in a tank with the birds, the pin-ups and the illegal music that he loves; and the mourning teacher seeks vengeance on the one who has widowed her…

The Silent Forest by KO Chen-Nien (Taiwan)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bJiw-HD3fc

Hearing-impaired teenager Chang Cheng transfers to a school for children with special needs. However, the world of the hearing-impaired doesn’t seem quiet at all. When he witnesses the “game” taking place in the last row on the school bus, his excitement about blending into school turns into fear.

The Forgotten by Daria Onyshchenko (Ukraine, Switzerland)

https://www.facebook.com/UkrainianInstitute.London/videos/371280620754526/

Nina, 30, a Ukrainian language teacher who can’t leave the city of Luhansk, occupied by separatists in Eastern Ukraine, is forced to undergo retraining courses for teaching Russian. Andrii, 17, is a student who was orphaned in the aftermath of the war. They cross paths when Nina witnesses Andrii being arrested by the police after hanging the Ukrainian flag from the roof of his school. Nina knows that because they live in a world of injustice and lies Andrii can stay in jail for a long time, and she risks her life to free him. As they gravitate towards each other, they try to remind people in the occupied territories that they deserve a future, too.

Bridge by KripalKalita (India)

The film is set in Assam and portrays the story of Jonaki, a strong and independent woman who endures a lot in her life at a young age.

A Dog And His Man by SiddharthTripathy (India)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5SFQXd2nrA

After being evicted from his home, a man wanders the streets, adrift in memories of better days.

Thaen by Ganesh Vinayakan (India)

The film chronicles the story of a couple living with their mute daughter in the Nilgiris forest.