After its two previous botched efforts at organising the event, Goa this year promises an “extravaganza” at the 37th International Film Festival of India beginning from November 23.
NEW DELHI: After its two previous botched efforts at organising the event, Goa this year promises an “extravaganza” at the 37th International Film Festival of India beginning from November 23. “We have learnt from our shortcomings, and this year we promise an extravanganza that will be the talk of the country,” JP Singh, Chief Secretary, Goa, told reporters here. Singh said infrastructure and logisitics, which came in for heavy criticism in the last two years, have been given priority this year.
Goa, which is now the permanent venue for IFFI, has been organising the festival since 2004. Unlike previous years when Bollywood was the focus in the Indian Panorama section, the festival will have a distinct regional flavour this year, with sreening of many feature and non-feature films in various languages. These include Rituparno Ghosh’s ‘Dosar’ in Bengali, Girish Kasarvalli’s ‘Nayi Neralu’ in Kannada, and ‘Sonam’ in Arunachali dialect — Monpa by young filmmaker Ahsan Muzid. However, Bollywood would be roped in to provide the ‘glamour quotient’ with veteran actor Shashi Kapoor inaugurating the festival. Other stars invited at the festival include Vidya Balan, who will be the ‘aarti girl’ at the inaguration, Anil Kapoor and Bengali superstar Prosenjit.
A total of 107 films from around 40 countries will be screened during the 11-day festival, whose theme this year is “Vasudeva Kutumbhakam” or the “The Whole World is One Family.”
This year the awards will comprise the Golden Peacock (Rs 10 lakh) award for best film, and Silver Peacock (Rs five lakh) for the ‘Most Promising Director.’ A Special Jury award will be presented to a director for ‘Individual Artistic Contribution.’
The jury will be chaired by Rolf De Heer, an award-winning director from Australia, and will comprise filmmakers Vincent Maraval and Olivier Assays from France and Assamese filmmaker Jahnu Barua.
While the ‘Country Focus’ will be Argentina, retrospective of Prithviraj Kapoor and noted Hollywood actor Al Pacino will be presented.
Bachchan cold-shouldered
Superstar Amitabh Bachchan has been cold-shouldered yet again by the organisers of the International Film Festival of India. After inviting Bachchan to inaugurate the festival last year, the organisers had backed out at the last minute. However, they were tightlipped when reporters asked them about Bachchan’s status at the festival this year. “Next question,” was all J P Singh, Chief Secretary, Goa , said after repeated queries from the mediapersons here.
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