PTI
NEW DELHI
The 50th International Film Festival of India will be held from November 20-28 in Goa with close to 250 films from various countries to be screened at the premier movie extravaganza.
Russia will be the partner country at the film festival this year, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar announced on Sunday.
The minister said Dadasaheb Phalke Award winner Amitabh Bachchan’s selected seven or eight films will also be showcased at the movie gala.
“Dadasaheb Phalke Award winner Shri Amitabh Bachchan’s outstanding contribution to cinema will be honoured and celebrated through a package of his impactful and entertaining films in the 50th edition,” Javadekar said in a statement.
As many as 12 films made
in different languages about 50 years ago will also be screened at the golden jubilee edition of IFFI, he added.
Indian Panorama, a flagship section of IFFI, which showcases the best of contemporary Indian feature and non-feature films, will have Gujarati period drama “Hellaro” as the opening film of feature section.
Directed by Abhishek Shan, the movie won the best feature film award at the 66th National Film Awards.
The feature film jury, headed by filmmaker and screenwriter Priyadarshan selected the 2018 film as the opening movie.
The 26 films to be screened under the feature film section include Lijo Jose Pellissery’s “Jallikettu”, “In The Land Of Poison Women”, directed by Manju Borah, Aditya Dhar’s “Uri: The Surgical Strike”, Hrithik Roshan-starrer “Super 30”, Ayushmann Khurrana-led “Badhaai Ho” and India’s official entry of Oscars, “Gully Boy”, helmed by Zoya Akhtar.
The non-feature jury was headed by well-known documentary filmmaker Rajendra Janglay and they selected “Nooreh”, a Kashmiri language tale directed by Ashish Pandey, as the opening non-feature film of Indian Panorama 2019.
Total 15 titles, including “Bohubritta”, “The Secret Life of Frogs”, “Gadhul”, “ShabdhikunnaKalpa” and “Mamatva”, will be showcased under the section.
In a first, the festival will screen films with audio description for the visual impaired.
Several film stars and about 10,000 movie lovers are expected to participate in the film festival this year.
Three venues to undergo structural stability audit
PANAJI: Three prime venues of the International Film Festival of India - the old GMC building used by ESG as its administrative office, the Maquinez Palace and the Inox multiplex - are slated to undergo a structural stability audit soon.
The Public Works department has decided to have structural stability audit of the three buildings surprisingly weeks before the 50th edition of IFFI is slated to be hosted mid-November. The PWD has has floated the tender for selecting a special technical agency to do structural audit and nondestructive testing (NDT) to determine the stability of the heritage building
of old Goa Medical College and the Maquinez Palace along with the Multiplex complex.
No official of either the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG) which now occupies the heritage building or the PWD were willing to come on record on why the structural audit is being carried out so close to the upcoming edition of IFFI.
In 2004 a Mumbai-based conservation architect Vikas Dilawari had estimated the restoration of Old GMC building which has housed Asia’s first Medical College would cost Rs 3.35 crore but the building had not been restored fully and only repair works of approximately Rs 70 lakh was done.
The Palace of Maquinezes or Palacio dos Maquinezes was built in 1702 and originally belonged to two brothers, Diago da Costa de Ataide e Tieve (a squadron leader) and Cristovam da Costa de Ataide e Tieve, known by the name of Maquinezes.
In 1842, the Portuguese used the nearly 150-year old Palace to house a medical institution -- Goa Medical College which was later occupied by various other government departments, including the FDA. Now, it houses the offices of the Entertainment Society of Goa, and the organizational partners of the International Film Festival of India, the Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) besides the Press Information Bureau (PIB).
The INOX buildings however have been built in 2004 when the IFFI was held first in Goa.
