PANAJI
This year's edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) kicked off on Sunday with the usual Bollywood style glitter and dazzle of the opening ceremony unveiled by the host Aparshakti Khurana at the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee stadium, Taleigao.
The 53rd edition of the country's flagship film festival found a permanent location in Goa since 2004 and is being held after a gap of three years due to the Covid-19 pandemic forced interruption since 2020. Last year it was held in the hybrid digital mode.
Some 280 films from 79 countries are being screened at this year’s edition of IFFI.
A glittering entertainment programme showcased the evolution of Indian Cinema over the last 100 years. A dazzling performance by bollywood superstar Karthik Aryan was its show-stopper.
The attendance at the ceremony of a galaxy of Bollywood movie stars added to the on-stage glitter even as a number of foreign film personalities were also spotted dotting the VIP galleries and the audience seating.
Spanish film maker Carlos Saura was honoured with the 'Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award'and Chiranjivi was conferred the 'Indian personality of the year' award.
The opening film is the Austrian movie Alma and Oskar which is directed by Dieter Berner and France is the country of focus, apparently in reciprocation of India getting the 'Country of Honour' at the Cannes festival this year.
The 'Country Focus’ segment will feature films by French directors such as Claire Denis, Mia Hansen Love, Florence Miailhe among others.
Union I&B Minister, Anurag Thakur, Goa Governor Sreedharan Pillai and Chief Minister Pramod Sawant shared the honours of the traditional act of lighting the lamp to mark the inauguration.
Earlier in the hours leading to the inaugural ceremony, Thakur had said that IFFI is Asia’s largest film festival and the aim is to establish it as a platform for eminent filmmakers, artistes and directors to showcase their craft.
"We want to make India a global content hub, be it for content creation, co-production, filmmaking or shooting,” Thakur said.
Sawant on the other hand picked the moment to throw an invitation to the fraternity to "invest in Goa even as he announced that his government will unveil a comprehensive policy to make the investing experience hassle-free and take Goa to another level vis-a-vis the film industry .
He stressed that Goa is gradually developing as a locale for film shoots and also promised to develop a world-class production and post-production hub.
Sawant, however, set another deadline for IFFI's exclusive venue -- 2025.
He said, the government is set to construct a 5,000-seater world-class International Convention Centre at Dona Paula adopting the public-private partnership (PPP) mode and on a Design-Build-Finance-Operate-and-Transfer (DBFOT) basis.
Bollywood stars Ajay Devgn, Paresh Rawal, Manoj Bajpayee, Kartik Aaryan, Suniel Shetty, Varun Dhawan, Sara Ali Khan and Mrunal Thakur were among the celebrities who occupied seats in the VIP enclosure at the opening ceremony.
Meanwhile, the film programming this year has lined up several gala premieres of Hindi films with their actors present to support and promote them.
These include Paresh Rawal’s The Storyteller, Ajay Devgn and Tabu’s Drishyam 2, Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon’s Bhediya and Yami Gautam’s Lost.
The I&B Ministry's Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) which oversees the programming and all organisational matters of the IFFI, has also carefully accomodated the South Indian film industry known to be vociferously critical of the excessive influence of Bollywood on the festival ever since Goa became its permanent host.
Telugu film Raymo, Deepti Naval and Kalki Koechlin’s Goldfish besides Randeep Hooda and Ileana D’Cruz’s Tera Kya Hoga Lovely are slated to be premiered through the nine days of the festival.
