International Film Festival of India 2017 has lived up to its endeavor to connect and showcase stories with themes never explored before. At Asia's biggest film festival, Italian filmmaker Andrea De Sica and French film producer, Sandra Da Fonseca discussed their respective films, Children of the Night and Montparnasse Bievenue at a feature called, Meet the Directors - Cinema of the World'. Both the films had very unique themes and made for an enlightening conversation at the festival.

Interestingly, ‘Children of the Night’ is based on a true story. It revolves around a 17-year-old Giulio sent to a boarding school for difficult offspring of rich families.  The teen finds a good friend in Edoardo. Taking advantage of the relaxed nocturnal security at the school they both start running away to a nightclub in the middle of the woods, where they meet Elena, a young prostitute whose destiny will be unforgettably linked to theirs. The night is a space of freedom, of new and perturbing experiences for the students but what they don’t know is that their transgressions are part of the educational program of the school.

Talking about the inspiration to make the film Andrea said, "It comes from my personal experience when I was in high school. I met a guy in Rome and it's full of noble folks like prince and princesses. I met this prince, he was 16 like me and he was a very kind guy. We hung out for a while and I discovered he was attending boarding school for four years. I was really impressed because I thought that boarding school in Italy were very old and didn't know that they existed. Later, I discovered that he was under trial for murder. It freaked me out and I decided to make this film."

The other film that was a talking point, ‘Montparnasse Bievenue’, a French film is about a person who is broke, has nothing but her cat to her name and doors closing on her face. Paula is back in Paris after a long absence, she meets different people along the way. There is one thing she knows for sure, she is determined to make a new start and she'll do it with style.

Producer of the movie, Sandra said, “The film premiered at Cannes Film Festival. We are very happy that the movie is travelling all over the world to India here in Goa. Thank you to the festival for showcasing the movie.”

The 48th Edition of IFFI will be held till 28th of November, 2017 in the beach state of Goa.

********

PIB IFFI 2017/ No 39