Film festival kicks off in Cyprus today
Cyprus’s Second International Film Festival kicks off at the island’s Cineplex cinemas today. Hoping to reflect all contemporary film production, the event will run to April 19. After a careful selection from applications by 600 filmmakers from 50 countries, this year’s program includes shorts and feature films, documentaries, films for children, video art, music videos and films about sports. A new category, that of video dance, also has been added this year. Films from all sections will compete for the great prize of the Golden Aphrodite. Screenings, which take place in Nicosia, Limassol and Larnaca, will also include films distinguished at international festivals, so as to inform local film buffs of up-and-coming filmmakers’ tendencies. Therefore, there will be films from Patras’s 8th Panorama of Independent Filmmakers, films and documentaries about social problems, documentaries about sports legends such as Diego Maradona and Zinedine Zidane, important productions about dance and a large tribute to Aliki Danezi-Knutsen, a Cypriot director who was born in Lyon, grew up in Cyprus and studied in California. Various directors, producers and film experts will honor the festival with their presence, such as director Nikos Koundouros (who is also head of the committee), Aliki Danezi-Knutsen, actress Chloe Liaskou as well as Lilette Botassi, Virginia Diakaki, Dimitris Koukas and others.
