Only one day left of DTFF – looks like it will go out with a bang. Tons to do, loads to see…

Family Days continue at Katara from noon until 8:00 PM. Kids will spend another day with arts and crafts, rocket-making, sports, storytelling, puppetry, music, dance and kite-making. At 2:00 PM, Doha Talks presents a panel for the whole family to enjoy – Express Yourself explores the use of animation, dance, music and art in the movies and will encourage everyone to find the artist within themselves.

Don’t forget the special kids’ red carpet before the screening of ‘Rise of the Guardians 3D’, Peter Ramsey’s eagerly anticipated, animated extravaganza based on William Joyce’s immensely popular books about Jack Frost, the Easter Bunny and other beloved legends saving the world from the evil plotting of Pitch, the Nightmare King. The youngsters will experience some of the razzle dazzle of showbiz … and who knows, maybe some day some of them will walk the red carpet of their own film premiere …

Screenings-wise, it’s a serious goodie-bag. Couple of major epics on at Souq Waqif – ‘What the Day Owes the Night’ is a smart and romantic, sweeping story of star-crossed love during the Algerian war for independence (6:00 PM at the Al Rayyan Theatre), while ‘Myn Bala – Warriors of the Steppe’ tells the tale of another battle for freedom, this one in 18th-century Kazakhstan.

The Audience Award picks were announced yesterday, so if you weren’t among the folks who voted because you missed them earlier in the week, now is your chance to see what all the fuss is about. The audience’s narrative pick is ‘Full Circle’, a hilarious and touching tale of a group of septuagenarians who enter a talent show against all odds – it plays twice today: at 6:30 PM at the DFI Cinema at MIA, and at 5:15 PM at Katara 12. ‘Searching for Sugar Man’, the audience’s doc pick, is the amazing story of Rodriguez, a 70s US musician whose work rose from the ashes of a crash-and-burn career, making him a cult figure in South Africa – see it at 8:30 PM at Katara 12.

You could also hang out at Katara for a triple bill in the Drama Theatre – Hayao Miyazaki’s classic anime feature ‘My Neighbor Totoro’, the charming tale of two young girls and the friendships they have with the spirits of the forest, goes up onscreen at 3:45 PM; then at 6:45 PM it’s the Iranian box-office hit ‘No Entry for Men’, in which Tehran’s strictest headmistress finds her life in chaos when she breaks her golden rule: no man must cross the threshold of her institution. Come back after dinner to check out the very funny ‘Seven Psychopaths’, a clever send-up of Hollywood psycho-killer flicks – it’s kind of like Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese got their laundry mixed up, and then while they were trying to sort out whose shorts are whose, Oliver Stone came by and shot them. (If that makes sense, see the film at 10:00 PM).

A fitting close to a week of free screenings at the Sony Open-Air Cinema is Giuseppe Tornatore’s ‘Cinema Paradiso’. Beloved for more than two decades, the film is an ode to cinema, a celebration of all the joy, love and sorrow that films can bring us – not so different from what we at DTFF have been doing all week. Come by at 8:00 PM and share some cinema under the stars.

Thanks for all the support for DTFF 2012 – don’t forget to check in with DFI every day to see what we’ve got going on all year round. See you next year!