36th IFFI takes off at Goa tomorrow
200 Films from 31 countries to be shown during 10-day fiesta
21 feature and 16 non-feature films in Indian Panorama
The 36th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) – 2005 takes off at Goa tomorrow. The inaugural ceremony will be preceded by a carnival, which would include floats, cultural pageantry and other festivities. The doyen of Hindi cinema, Dev Anand will be the Chief Guest whereas popular film star from the South, Chiranjeevi will be the Guest of Honour. Union Minister of Culture and Urban Development, Shri S. Jaipal Reddy will be present at the opening ceremony. Film actresses Bipasha Basu and Tara would share the honour of being the ‘Thali Girl’.
Brazilian film ‘Olga’ will be the inaugural film for the 10-day extravaganza. Directed by Jayme Monjardim, the film chronicles the true story of the German revolutionary Olga Benario Prestes. Over 300 screenings of around 200 films from India and abroad will be held during the Festival. The Competition Section this year has films from Africa and Latin America, besides Asia. Fourteen films besides the opening film will compete, including ‘Iqbal’ by Nagesh Kukunoor and ‘Perumazhakkalam’ (Malayalam) directed by Kamal from India. The entries in this section are drawn from thirteen countries. The international film jury for the competition is headed by the famous Chilean film director Miguel Littin. Members include, Derflinger the Austrian film director, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, the renowned Indian film director, Faramarz Gharibian, the famous Iranian Actor and another famous French film director Alain Corneau.
Cinema of the World would showcase sixty-four films drawn from thirty-one countries. The Festival will have retrospectives of French actress Isabelle Huppert whose six films will be screened; famous Swiss screenwriter, actress and director Ms. Lina Wertmuller with five films; Baden Wuerttemberg (five films) and German student films (seven films). The retrospective on Iran will showcase seven films of noted Iranian directors.
The Festival is paying special tributes to Ismail Merchant, Sunil Dutt and Gemini Ganesh who passed away this year. The Tribute Section will start with Merchant’s multi award winning first directorial venture ‘In Custody’. Other films of the tribute are ‘Heat & Dust’, ‘The Golden Bowl’, ‘Howard’s End’, ‘The Remains of the Day’ and ‘Room with a View’. In paying homage to the actor politician Sunil Dutt, the Festival will be screening ‘Mujhe Jeene Do’ a 1963 milestone movie. The Festival will remember veteran Tamil actor Gemini Ganesh by screening his film ‘Parthiban Kanavu’.
Indian Panorama, the showcase of Indian Cinema this year has 21 features and 16 non-features. The feature section opens with Daivanamathil (Malayalam) directed by noted filmmaker Jayaraj while the non-feature section opens with The Jaws of Death (English) by Gautam Saikia on 25 November 2005. The mainstream section, which has a collection of 12 best grosser of the past one year, opens with Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Black” on 25 November 2005. The Festival pays tribute to the creative genius of the great Indian film director-editor Hrishikesh Mukherjee by screening seven of his milestone films.
With a view to expose the younger generation to the works of great Indian filmmakers of the past generation, the Festival is introducing a special section NFA Gold. As part of this section, the Festival will screen two landmark films that won the President’s Gold Medal 50 years ago in the years 1953 and 1954 namely, Shyamchi Aai (Marathi) by P K Atre and Mirza Ghalib (Hindi) by Late Sohrab Modi. A special section of films that have used music as theme has been devised this time. As part of this section, a collection of five landmark films would be screened.
Another special feature at the Festival is the Masters’ Class, curated by filmmaker Vijay Singh wherein master filmmakers will hold interactive sessions on whys and hows of their cinema. As part of this section prominent filmmakers like Shyam Benegal, Sudhir Mishra, Madhur Bhandarkar, Siomn Relph, the British Film Producer, Alain Corneau, the French director and the famous English Actress Dolores Chaplin will conduct various interactive sessions with delegates.
The Festival stands to premiere as many as five latest films across genres on contemporary subjects. The Festival premieres include Parzania by Rahul Dholakia, Blue Umbrella by Vishal Bhardwaj, Manthan – Ek Amrut Pyala by Dr. Mrinalini Patil Dayal – a Marathi language film, Deewane Hue Paagal by Vikram Bhatt and Dubai Return by Aditya Bhattacharya.
Belgium-France film ‘The Child’ directed by Jean Pierre and Luc Dardene will be the closing film for the Festival.
The Film bazaar this year is proposed to be made more effective and vibrant with countries having co-production agreements with India like France, Italy, United Kingdom etc. participating in a big way with their films and delegations.
Apart from a vibrant collection of film shows, the Festival also has Seminars, Open Forum, Beach Screenings, Meet the Director programmes and several press conferences at the state of the art Media Center. Besides movie watching, the delegates, tourist and local people will get to enjoy the festivities with a series of programmes featuring local artists. The film screenings will be held at four theatres in the multiplex INOX and Kala Academy. The public at large this year would benefit as some sections of Festival will spread to Margao in south Goa.
RS/AS/23.11/06
(Release ID :13491)