CYPRUS’ first international film festival is set to take place at the end of March, the first of what organisers hope will develop into a major yearly event for international filmmakers and cinemagoers.
Out of over 400 movies submitted, 130 movies from 40 countries were selected to compete in the first Cyprus International Film Festival (CIFF), which will include three competition categories: Feature Film, Short Film, and Animation.
The main prize will be the ‘Golden Aphrodite’, a £10,000 award to the director of the best feature film.
But in an effort to promote the island, the ‘Golden Aphrodite’ does carry a condition with it: the director must use the money to film part of his or her next film in Cyprus.
Organisers said that the festival will be structured like the Cannes Festival and the Sundance Festival. According to the group, the CIFF aims to “combine the glamour of the Cannes International Film Festival with the innovative, young, raw talent of the Sundance Festival”.
The four-day event – which organisers have been working on since 2001 – opens on Friday, March 24 and ends with the ‘Golden Aphrodite’ Gala Award Ceremony on Monday, March 27.
Vakis Loizides of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation told the Cyprus Mail that the festival was chosen in late March so that it would not compete with the major summer film festivals, thereby drawing more of the film festival crowd.
Films will be screened Friday to Sunday from 10am to 2am and on Monday 10am to 6pm at K-Cineplex cinema theatres in Limassol, Larnaca and Nicosia and at CineStudio and the Unesco Room of Intercollege on a limited schedule.
Films by directors who live abroad, films on sport and athletes, cult movies, and films by Cypriot directors are some of the categories of films being shown.
In conjunction with the screenings, there will be a conference at the Limassol Lantitis Centre, festivities around the Limassol mediaeval Castle, and workshops and seminars at the University of Cyprus and Intercollege in Nicosia.
Among these events will be a one-act play, exhibitions on photography, painting and sculpture, workshops on Special Effects and Make up for Movies, and a scriptwriting seminar.
The films to be screened during the festival have not yet been announced but organisers said details are coming in the following weeks.
The jury committee, consultants and guests are international in makeup, including Stuart Alson, founder of the New York International Film and Video Festival, Andrew Horton, a director and professor of Film Studies at the University of Oklahoma, and Van Papadopoulos, coordinator for the Official Selection and programmer of the Cannes Classics section of the Cannes International Film Festival.
CIFF organiser Nora Hadjisotiriou told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that Francis Ford Coppola was invited in November.
“He told us that he could come if his schedule allowed it,” Hadjisotirou said, then adding that Coppola is scheduled to be filming in Romania in late March.
“So we are praying it will be raining in Romania.”
