Dec. 23: The Gauhati Cine Club and the directorate of cultural affairs have lined up some of the best feature films and short films from 11 countries in the Festival of World Cinema here as a yearend treat for the city’s cineastes.

Poet Nilamani Phukan will inaugurate the weeklong festival at Rabindra Bhavan on Thursday at 3.30 pm. Eminent film personalities of the state will be present on the occasion.

The event will kick off with the screening of Polish film Happy Man, followed by the Hungarian classic The Gambler — a British-Dutch-Hungarian biographical drama that takes a peek at novelist Feodor Dostoyevsky.

Japanese movie giant Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and Paradise Under Star from Cuba will be screened at 3.30 pm and 6 pm respectively on Friday.

The enthusiasts can enjoy three films — The Intruders from Sri Lanka, The Last Blue from Hungary and Flower Lake from Greece on Saturday.

Secretary of the club, Kanak Chandra Kalita, said December 28 would be observed as World Cinema Day, screening a collection of short, documentary and feature films from France Les Enfants de Lumiere, A Real Young Lady, Un Bunuel Maxicain, Un Chien Andalau, Histories des Festival and Beath.

On December 29, Swiss movie Broken Silence and Dolly Bird from Greece will be screened at 3.30 pm and 6 pm respectively.

Globally-acclaimed Cuban film Strawberry And Chocolate will be screened at 3.30 pm and Woman Paradise from Uzbekistan) at 6 pm on the penultimate day of the festival.

On the concluding day, an Assamese film on late Bhabendra Nath Saikia — Sringkhal — will be screened at 1.30 pm. Spanish movie Home Work will bring down the curtains on the carnival.

A special issue of Chitra-Chinta, the journal of the club, will be taken out during the festival.

Kalita said the cine club — set up in 1965 and oldest in the state — will organise regular film shows on every second Saturday, fourth Saturday and Sunday at Lakhiram Barua Sadan.