Date: October 30, 2018: After the successful Cannes Marche du Film screening of the work-in-progress cut in May, the completion of the film was greeted with two back-to-back festival selections in Europe. Kia and Cosmos, the film that captures the story of the 15-year-old girl, Kia and her investigative journey spurred by the murder of her neighbourhood cat, Cosmos is slowly building a substantial European audience.
At the Cannes Film Festival 2018, Kia and Cosmos was screened at the Palais B in the film market in presence of an international audience that admired the film. It was a work-in-progress cut and the film then had its share of final post production over the months before hitting the international festivals arena. Here are the most recent updates.
Kia and Cosmos and Barcelona
Sudipto Roy’s directorial debut, Kia and Cosmos will be screened in Barcelona on November 9th at the Asian Film Festival Barcelona 2018. The film is an official entry in the competition category as per the official release stating: The direction of the Asian Film Festival Barcelona highlights, among the hundred films, in addition to the inaugural and the closing, these ten titles: Our Time wil come (Hong Kong / 2017), The Third Wife (Vietnam / 2018), Black Kite (Afghanistan / 2017), Kia and Cosmos (India / 2018), February (Korea / 2017), Lima (Indonesia / 2018), Bad genius (Thailand / 2017)), Rachana (Cambodia / 2018), Life Dwelers (Iran / 2017), and As is the purest, the purest white (China / 2018).
The Asian Film Festival Barcelona 2018 will open with Japan’s Shoplifters by Hirozaku Kore-eda that won the Cannes Golden Palm this year and is Japan’s entry to the Oscars.
Among the Indian entries, there are films such as Liptstick Under My Burkha by Alankrita Srivastava as a special entry three other films in the non-competition category. The festival will be celebrating films from almost 24 countries of Asia including countries such as Australia, Iran, Japan and China whose entries have travelled to other notable festivals in the world and won accolades. Here’s the programme of the festival.
The Asian Film Festival Barcelona will award a total of 15 prizes: prize for the best film, best director and best script for each of the sections in the contest, as well as the Audience and Young Jury prize.
4 nominations at Milan
The Milan International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema 2018 popularly known as Milan IFF announced its official entries including Kia and Cosmos in its competition category with four nominations. Abhinav Agnihotri in the Best Sound Design, Anirban Maity in Best Editing of a Foreign Language Film, Aditya Varma in the Best Cinematography of a Foreign Language Film and Director Sudipto Roy for Best Director of a Foreign Language Feature Film in the Milan IFF 2018. The film will be screened on December 2 at 1400 hours in the festival according to the website. You can also check the other international entries in the same categories in the link above.
The festival is one of a kind in Milan and will take place from December 1 to 8 culminating with a gala award ceremony on the last day. With 54 coveted awards, the festival will recognise talents from all the Film Fest International events that took place in cities such as London, Amsterdam, Nice, Madrid, Berlin and finally in Milan all throughout the year.
Kia and Cosmos – the film
Based on the universal themes of parenthood, class divides, and the coming-of-age of presumably India’s first girl-detective, the film is aimed at demography with a mixed bag of interests ranging from World Cinema to the understanding of the Autism Spectrum to the penchant for investigative journeys and the love for mountains. The film attracts people of all age groups- the 12-year-old leaves the hall empowered by the idea of mystery novels, with the aftertaste of an Enid Blyton world, while a 50-year-old revisits the fabric of families and their participation in the lives of their children.
Plot Outline: A 15-year-old otherworldly girl diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorders, living with her single mother takes on the quest of writing a mystery novel spurred by the murder of the neighbourhood cat, who subsequently, with the help of her shadow teacher and her best friend and rickshaw puller, finds herself in an audacious journey from Kolkata to Kalimpong to uncover the mysterious disappearance of her father.
The film will see nationally renowned actors such as Swastika Mukherjee and Joy Sengupta in leading roles and a bunch of young talents sharing the screen space. Ritwika Pal, making her debut in this film is someone to lookout for as she plays the central and pivotal character of Kia the girl who suffers from pervasive developmental disorder and yet finds her way to investigate the murder of a cat. Sraman Chatterjee and Zahid Hossain are two of the other crucial names to add in the casting along with Bangladesh’s Amaan Reza and the veteran Mita Chatterjee.
Kia and Cosmos is set for an Indian release next year. The film will also be a part of the upcoming NFDC Film Bazaar’s Viewing Room for industry professionals and film festival agents.
