Minister of I&B reviewed arrangements for IFFI- 2008
over 5000 delegates to attend
SYSTEM OF DAILY REGISTRATION TO ATTRACT LOCAL FILM LOVERS
The Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, Shri Anand Sharma held the first meeting of the Organising Committee of the 39th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2008 today in New Delhi to review the arrangements for the forthcoming festival at Goa starting on November 22. Shri Sharma said that the Indian Cinema has over the years attracted global attention, and the events like IFFI-2008 should serve as a platform to evoke greater interest of global audience. He further mentioned that the IFFI should be organized in a manner befitting India’s position as the largest producer of films in the world. The event should be mutually enriching both for visiting delegates from International film arena and Indian film industry.
The opening function will be held at Kala Academy, Panaji. The function will be organized in keeping with the standards of prestigious film festivals internationally. 200 seats will be reserved for delegates from the film fraternity to ensure their larger presence, the Minister announced.
The System of daily registration has been introduced to enable the local film buffs to register themselves on daily basis by paying Rs. 100 and watch three films of their choice of the Indian Section.
Over 5000 delegates, from India and abroad are expected to attend the festival, which will have Cinema of the World, Competition Section, Foreign Retrospective, Film Heritage Section, and Indian Retrospective besides Indian Panorama as major attraction.
This time there are three country focuses – Russia, Switzerland and Iran.
The Indian Panorama will have 26 feature films and 21 non-feature films selected by Jury headed by Shri K. N. T. Sastry and Shri Anjan Bose respectively. ‘Yarwing’, a film in Kokborok language of Tripura, will be the opening film, the first ever in a North Eastern language of the country, of Indian Panorama. ‘Mahasatta’ (Marathi), ‘A Wednesday’ (Hindi) ‘Taare Zameen Par’ (Hindi), ‘Pulijanmam’ (Malayalam), among others, will be the highlights of Indian Panorama.
Indian Retrospectives will showcase the films of L. V. Prasad, Bimal Roy, 75 years of Kannada Cinema and a Talk by Ms. Kishwar Desai on “Devika Rani and Himanshu Rai: Globalization of Early Indian Cinema”.
Another segment of the festival will be ‘Homages’ to eminent film personalities. This segment will have screening of films of doyens like G. P. Sippy, F. C. Mehra, Jaishree Gadkar, Mahendra Kapoor,
The World Cinema will have 104 films of which 15 films would be competing for awards in Competitive Section. This Section has widely acclaimed films from Asia, Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America.
A Film Bazaar will be organized by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) on the sidelines of IFFI-2008.
The Film Bazaar aims at creating opportunities for networking and business for producers, filmmakers and distributors from across the world. The “Work-in Progress Lab” for review of rough cuts of films in making, workshops on screen writing, projects on pre selected feature as well as documentary films and master classes by Shyam Benegal on nuances of his art of film making etc. would be new features at Film Bazaar.
SP/AS
(Release ID :44494)