The Mother Teresa International Film Festival, 2010, got underway today with the premier of 'Mother Teresa' a documentary made by two American sisters about the Nobel laureate nun."I declare the festival open," Missionaries of Charity (MoC) superior-general Sr Prema said at the function at Nandan film complex.Organised in collaboration with the MoC, the UNESCO and Catholic Relief Service, the festival opened with the 82 minute documentary made in 1986 by Ann and Jeanette Petrie of the US.Shot in 24 locations spanning 10 countries over five continents, the film is seen as a definitive work on the Nobel laureate nun."When I came to India to make the film, I wanted to keep God out of it. In course of making it, I had to change my idea. I found it was impossible to separate Mother Teresa from God," Jeanette Petrie said while introducing the film.In another development, the BBC, after some initial feet-dragging, has agreed to lend the first-ever documentary on Mother, 'Something Beautiful for God' by Malcolm Muggeridge to the festival.Director of MTIFF, 2010, Sunil Lucas, said the film had been accomodated in the screening schedule. 

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The four-day festival will have 50 screenings of 15 films from the US, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Japan and India.Among the films are two features - 'In the Name of God's Poor' starring Charlie Chaplin's daughter Geraldine as Mother Teresa and 'Madre Teresa' in which celebrated actor Olivia Hussey plays the nun.Lucas said that after closing here on August 29, the festival will travel to Guwahati, Shillong, Imphal, Agartala, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Indore, Ahmedabad, Udaipur andsome other parts of the country.It will also travel later to Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, the Phillippines and Nepal, he said.