the goan I network
PANAJI
The 49th International Film Festival of India, the 15th edition in its Goa avatar, will kick off with a gala opening ceremony at the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium on Tuesday evening.
To be telecast live by Doordarshan, Goa Governor Mridula Sinha, Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore, Goa PWD Minister Sudin Dhavlikar and chairperson of the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal Prasoon Joshi will grace the opening ceremony.
The absence of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, due to his prolonged battle with pancreatic cancer, will be felt at the ceremony as he is the architect behind Goa becoming a permanent venue for the International Film Festival of India and has graced opening and closing ceremonies of almost every one of the past 14 editions held here in his capacity as either the Chief Minister, Opposition Leader or Union Defence Minister.
The I&B Ministry in a press release meanwhile said, Tuesday’s ceremony will showcase New India through a variety of cinema genres in a 90-minute programme incorporating elements and narratives of Indian films’ rich and diverse kaleidoscope of heritage and industry.
Among the film personalities expected to add glitter to the ceremony will be Akshay Kumar, Karan Johar, Julien Landais, Hrishita Bhatt, Madhur Bhandarkar, Subhash Ghai, Arijit Singh, Ramesh Sippy and Chin Han.
At the opening ceremony, glimpses of the opening film “The Aspern Papers”, which tells a story of obsession, grandeur lost and dreams of Byronic adventures will be screened with its Director Julien Landais addressing the audience.
It will showcase themes of history, action and romance in an array of on-stage performances by mainstream Bollywood artistes “ with Sonu Sood doing a set, Shilpa Rao doing a romantic bit and dancers, it said.
A Special Package for Visually Impaired Children with special screenings and audio description will also be held.
The festival will showcase the movies ‘Sholay’ and ‘Hichki’ under this section, the I&B Ministry said.
Chairman, International Competition Jury and Polish Director Robert Glinski will also share his thoughts.
Other jury members, namely Adrian Sitaru, Anna Ferraioli Ravel, Tom Fitz Patrick and Indian member Rakeysh
Omprakash Mehra will also
be present.
