Mumbai: UTV World Movies showcased award-winning films from around the world at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2008 for the very first time. The Song of Sparrows, Iran’s official entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar at the 81st Academy Awards, 2009 will be the closing film at the festival. The channel offers a special collection of movies by Aki Kaurismaki as a part of special category Retrospectives. Award-winning titles Inju, The Waltz with Bashir, Wrap Up and Who’s Next will be screened under the category ‘Cinema of the World’.

UTV Entertainment Television COO Dilshad Master says, “We are happy to associate with the International Film Festival of India to showcase the most contemporary and award winning titles from the international films circuit for our audience here. Soon these movies will premiere on the channel for everyone to watch.” Commenting on The Song of Sparrows being nominated as the Closing Film, she added, “It gives us immense pride to offer this movie as the Closing Film and also provide movies for the Retrospective section on well-known director Aki Kaurismaki.”

Majid Majidi’s Berlin Silver Bear winner The Song of Sparrows is a deeply humanistic story set among Iran’s underprivileged and explores how capitalism and technology corrupts man. His other films are Children of Heaven, The Colours of Paradise and The Willow Tree to name a few.

Retrospectives – Aki Kaurismaki, a special section dedicated to movies by the director will feature four titles from the UTV World Movies library – Ariel, Drifting Clouds, The Match Factory Girl and The Man Without a Past.

Barbet Schroeder’s French thriller Inju, a special presentation at Toronto International Film Festival this year, will now be presented at the film festival in Goa under the Cinema of the World category. This movie was nominated Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival 2008.

Other contemporary titles that are screening under this category include Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folman’s animated documentary into the horrors of the 1982 Lebanon war which was nominated for Golden Palm at the Cannes 2008; Wrap Up, a 2007 Spanish and Argentine comedy film directed and written by Ramón Costafreda; and Who’s Next by Manuel Gutierrez Aragon is about life in Spain’s politically delicate Basque region.