TIM WONG previews the latest installment of the World Cinema Showcase, compelling in its tenth year.

BRIDGING the 12-month gap between New Zealand International Film Festivals, the World Cinema Showcase is a calculated and deliberate late-Summer institution. More than simply jumpstarting the local film festival season, its strategic positioning affords unique advantages: namely, as a sweeper able to pick up on any missed opportunities its bigger brother was unable to lock down the previous Winter. Those curious as to the whereabouts of Cannes flashpoints such as Catherine Breillat’s An Old Mistress (with the red hot Asia Argento), or the festival’s eventual conqueror, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, will be pleased to know both films screen as part of the Showcase this March and April.

Out of India, GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN considers the current Indian and Bollywood Cinema.

BOLLYWOOD: I just loved Imtiaz Ali’s When We Met, which reminded me of Frank Capra’s 1943 Clark Gable-Claudette Colbert romance It Happened One Night. Ali’s work is as delightful, though his lead characters, unlike Capra’s, use train stations and bogies to meet (yes, there is even a kissing scene here, something still rare in Indian cinema), part and meet again. It is a rail movie that can well fit into the genre of a road movie. Breezy and romantic in a 1960s sense, When We Met is entertaining to the hilt, without sliding into too many coincidences and exaggerations. It really is a film that could have been made when love was innocent, when men and women were true to the commitment they made to each other. While the movie makes little pretence of attracting the serious art cinema fans, it will undoubtedly catch the eye of those who would want to spend an evening at the cinema without having to put on their thinking caps. It is bound to race on the commercial track, much like its hero and heroine.

GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN detours from the major festival circuit, finding the pace at the 7th Marrakech International Film Festival refreshing leisured, and the films mostly gripping.

SOMETIMES, I feel that having covered major international film festivals across the globe and for two long decades, including really flashy ones such as Cannes, Venice and Berlin, I must now look at smaller, more intimate festivals. Like cinema, where big-budget blockbusters can be addictively attractive, personal, low-key, cherished movies made on shoestring money can also be so darn appealing. Provided, provided, you turn your attention to them.