The Goan: One of the biggest complaints that most laypeople had with IFFI, especially the residents of Panaji, was that the frills around the festival were hampering their everyday lives. Things have changed this year…
Ameya Abhyankar: Any film festival is nearly always about the films and the programming is at the heart of the festival. The experience of delegates is one of the intrinsic and core values of the festival. This year there has been a lot of effort on the programming. Almost all the movies that have come in from abroad are the Oscar entries of those countries. Even the Indian and Goan selections are very good. People come up and ask for repeat screenings, like in the case of Nachom-ia Kumpasar and The Man Who Knew Infinity. That is a huge take home for us.
TG: Looking around, the profile of the delegates seems to be a little different and there are lot of things for them to do, apart from watchin films.
AA: I’ve been told that we have delegates this year who are really passionate about films. I make it a point to interact with them every day. One of the things that they are happy about is that there is some fringe ecosystem built around them. There are guided tours to Divar Island and Old Goa., which have been very well received. We have an art exhibition which showcase art and craft from Goa, and a bookshop to sit down and leafy through book on Goa and by Goans and people living in the state. We experimented with a new concept called the IFFI mile, in association with NFAI. But I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely happy with it. In the coming year, it will be much better; we will have an Incredible India mile.
TG: There have also been efforts to increase public engagement?
AA: This is a film festival after all, so we focused on the open air screenings. The response has been better than last year because the programming has been much better. We needed to have movies that have a mass appeal. We also wanted to take the message of IFFI to the far corners of Goa. Picture Time was a company, which came up as a sponsored thing. We didn’t spend anything on it. They have taken a mobile theatre, a 4K projection system and 5.1 Dolby Surround. They have showcasing commercial cinema there. People have been over the moon. It’s been a shot in the arm. There are plans to create a small section for children next year and have outdoor cinema for children.
TG: Online ticketing has been scrapped this year. Shouldn’t IFFI be more tech savvy?
AA: We’ve had a mixed response to that. Some are very happy that we’ve done away with online ticketing since it used to lead to serpentine queues outside the theatre. We need to fine tune technology in such a way that it works for everyone. We had a chat with someone from Google, to use RFID and other technology to help us assess the occupancy in cinema. The long term vision is to go paperless. Of course there are still the senior generation of cinema goers, who like their paper tickets so it will not go away completely for now.
TG: Spending increased over the years and a lot has been coming out of the state exchequer. What are your plans to change this?
AA: One of the objectives was to see how we can reduce verticals of expenditure. We reached out to sponsors and some have come on board with us. We’ve had good tie-ups, like with One School Goa, who have a team of about 30 photographers here, free of cost. This way the students get experience and we have people everywhere. We have also started a daily called The Peacock with rich content. We unfortunately had hardly a month to go to close sponsorships. It’s not the way a corporate functions to be honest. They require more time since they’re looking at synergy with the brand value. We will start earlier on, for next year, perhaps even as early as January 2016. Our aim is to build a brand and get this festival self-sufficient in the near future. We want to reach out to tier 1 and tier 2 cities and partner countries, so that there is a synergy with tourism. This has to grow as a destination event.
