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A four-day film festival title ‘The Film within a Film’ began on Sunday at the Goethe-Institut at Dhanmandi in the city.
   Marking the 21st founding anniversary of the Zahir Rain Film Society, established in 1986, the festival has been organised and will remain open for all.
   A total of fifteen films will be screened during the festival which will continue till Wednesday, said the organiser.
   The festival opened screening Nayak, a film by Satyajit Ray. Later, Eight and a Half by Federico Fellini and Beware of a Holy Whore by Rainer Werner Fassbinder were screened.
   On the second day of the festival, four films including ‘Sunset Boulevard’ (110 minutes, black and white, 1950), directed by Billy Wilder of the United States of America, will be screened at 2:00pm, ‘Close Up’ (100 minutes, colour 1990), directed by Abbas Kiarostami of Iran at 4:00pm; ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ (102 minutes, colour 1952), directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly of the United States of America, at 5:45pm; and ‘Shadow Magic’ (115 minutes, colour, 1999); directed by Ann Hu of China, at 7:30pm will be screened.
   On Tuesday, ‘Akaler Sandhane’ (115 minutes, colour, 1980), directed by Mrinal Sen of India, will be screened at 2:00pm while ‘A Slave of Love’ (94 minutes, colour, 1978), directed by Nikita Mikhalkov of Russia, at 4:00pm; ‘Day for Night’ (120 minutes, colour, 1973), directed by François Truffaut of France, at 5:30pm; and ‘Good Morning, Babylon’ (115 minutes, colour, 1987), directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani of Italy, at 7:30pm.
   On the concluding day of the programme, the organisers will include a discussion on films at 5:30pm. They will screen ‘Shadow of the Vampire’ (91 minutes, colour, 2000), directed by E Elias Merhige of Germany, at 2:00pm; while Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Contempt’ (103 minutes, colour, 1963), at 3:30pm and ‘Slow Motion’ (87 minutes, colour, 1979) at 5:45pm. The last movie of the day, ‘Lost in La Mancha’ (93 minutes, colour, 2003), directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, will be screened at 7:15pm.
   According to the organisers, they are working for a film movement in the country and creating opportunities to screen the world famous movies. They hope, the movie buffs will enjoy the films.

A collection of JMW Turner watercolours described as ‘one of the finest to have comeon the market in living memory’ has been auctioned for £10.6m.
   One of the paintings - Venice: Looking towards the Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore - fetched £2.9m, more than twice what had been expected.
   The most expensive painting was Lungernsee, a view of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, which sold for £3.6m.
   Two of the 14 Turners in the London sale did not meet their reserve price.
   The paintings had been the property of Baron Guy Ullens, a Belgian businessman who has been collecting Turners for 20 years.
   ‘The decision to part with the Turner watercolours was a difficult one,’ he said.
   ‘But parting with these wonderful works has been made easier because of the knowledge that they will now be enjoyed by other collectors.’
   Last year, Turner’s The Blue Rigi was sold for £5.83m - a record for a British watercolour.
   Another record was set at Wednesday’s sale when Velazquez’s Santa Rufina was purchased for £8.4m - the
   highest price ever paid for a Spanish Old Master painting at auction.

Marking the 11th convocation of the Independent University of Bangladesh, the students of the university staged Anton Chekov’s Uncle Vanya at the National Theatre Hall of the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy on Saturday.
   The play revolves around Uncle Vanya, a retired professor and the different roles are played by Quazi Yamin
   Kabir, Ahmed Adeeb Huda, Mirza Atik Ahmed, Hussainul Abedin, Nur Mehrab, Tanzin Sultana Chowdhury, Asma Afroze, Jannatan Naima and Fatou Ndiaye.
   The students also staged Michael Madhusudan Dutta’s Buro shaliker gare ro on Sunday.

The Icelandic film Myrin took the main prize, the Crystal Globe, at the international Karlovy Vary film festival on Saturday.
   The film, directed by Baltasar Kormakur, tells the story of a collection of pugnacious men.
   The realistic Russian film Prostie Vechi (Simple Things) from young director Alexis Popogrebski won two awards for its principle actors as well as a prize from the International Federation of Film Critics and from the ecumenical jury.
   Sergey Puskepalis, 40, who plays a disillusioned doctor from Saint Petersburg, was given the prize for best actor and Leonid Bronevoy, 79, one of his capricious patients, was awarded an honourable mention from the jury. Norwegian Bard Breien was awarded the prize for best director for his film The Art of Negative Thinking.
   ‘I was often asked why I shot a movie about deeply depressed and lonely people. I know now that in Eastern Europe they are as depressed as we are’, he joked on receiving his prize.
   Australian Michael James Rowland was also awarded an honourable mention by the jury for Lucky Miles, the story of a clandestine group of immigrants who land on the Australian coast.
   Spaniard Elvira Minguez was named best actress for her role in the film Pudor by the brothers Tristan and David Ulloa.
   The Czech film Vratne Lahve (Returned Bottles) directed by Jan Sverak was selected by the public for the award for the best script.
   Created in 1946, the Karlovy Vary film festival claims to be the biggest film event in central Europe. Its eclectic programme has attracted thousands of film fans each year to the biggest spa town, formerly Carlsbad, in the west of the country.