more-in The curtain will go up on the 111-day annual Soorya Festival on Friday. This year, the festival will be conducted without the inaugural and valedictory ceremonies and will take up rehabilitation of 200 households in the flood-hit Thiruvanvandoor village. All programmes except a concert by singer K.J. Yesudas and actor Manju Warrier’s dance recital will be held at Soorya’s air-conditioned blackbox theatre ‘Ganesham.’ Discourse Another highlight of the festival is a seven-day discourse on the Mahabharata by Communist Party of India leader and MLA Mullakkara Ratnakaran. The festival will comprise various segments such as dance, music, film, and theatre festivals. It will kick off with the Indian Panorama Film Festival on Friday. Films The films to be screened include Bhayanakam, Ee Maa Yau, Newton, Manasugadha, Aravindante Athithikal, Kadvi Hava and Kaasav. The Dance and Music Festival from October 1 will get under way with a Carnatic vocal concert by Yesudas. Rama Vaidyanathan, Priyadarsini Govind, Nithyasree Mahadevan, Manju Warrier, Methil Devika, and Asha Sharat will be performing. A Theatre Festival will be held from October 11 to 20. Plays to be screened include Hand of God, Curse of Urvashi, Water Princess, Draupadi, and Karimkutty. The Jalsa Ghar concerts will see performances by artistes such as Gayathri, Manjari, Shahbaz Aman, Anita Sheique, Varsha Agarwal and Lalit Mohant, and Pranamita Roy. Dancers Dakshina Vaidyanathan, Pratiksha Kashi, Shweta Prachanda, Divya Unni, and Deepti Gupta will take part in the Parampara series. A photography exhibition by Jithesh Damodaran titled Kanayi@80 and Yakshi@50 will be held from November 11 to 20. Talks on spirituality will be held from November 11. The Meet the Masters segment from November 21 will feature screening of five films by Tamil director K. Balachander that won the national award. The ‘Signs’ short film festival will be held from November 25 to 30. A Mohiniyattam Festival beginning December 1 will see renowned names such as Pallavi Krishna, Sunanda Nair, Neena Prasad, Gopika Varma, and Smitha Rajan perform. The Jugalbandi segment from December 6 will include duos such as Ashwathi and Srikanth and Sree Renjini and Ravi Chary. Painting expo Painting exhibition by Kalagramam will begin on December 11 as well as the second segment of spirituality talks. Arangu beginning December 21 will include Chiriyarangu, Kunjarangu, Naatarnagu, and so on. A Talk Festival will get under way on January 1. Workshops will also be held on dance, theatre, photography, paintings, during the festival duration.

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