PANAJI
The stage is set for a star-studded opening ceremony of the 52nd edition of International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa with the presence of Bollywood stars like Salman Khan, Ranveer Singh and Shraddha Kapoor attending the event along with Riteish Deshmukh, Genelia Deshmukh, and Mouni Roy.
The opening ceremony will be hosted by Karan Johar and Maniesh Paul, as well. Along with that, IFFI will be paying homage to the thespian Dilip Kumar, and filmmakers Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Sumitra Bhave.
The festival will also pay homage to international personalities like Christopher Plummer, Bertrand Tavernier, and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
IFFI will be hosting the international premiere of a Spanish film. Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura’s film The King of All the World will be the opening film at IFFI’s 52nd edition.
This will not just be the India premiere of the film, but its international premiere as well. It is a musical drama, which shows the artistic and musical connections between Spain and Mexico.
The film, which is written and directed by Carlos Saura, has a cast of stellar actors and dancers from both the countries. In addition, award-winning Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro who has won Oscars for Apocalypse Now (1979), Reds (1981), and The Last Emperor (1987) has joined Saura for this film. In January, the 51st edition of the IFFI held in January this year had honoured Vittorio Storaro with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
There is a line-up of films selected for the debut competition. The festival has been a launch pad to several filmmakers over the years. This section aims at bringing the best first-time filmmakers of the year in this section, said a PIB release.
Nine debut films have been selected for this competition which includes both Indian language films and international films. The films for the debut competition have been selected by the preview committee which is appointed by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Earlier this year, the 51st IFFI’s opening film Another Round (Danish: Druk) won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film 2021, and BAFTA Film Award 2021 for the Best Film Not in The English Language.
The festival was held from January 16-24 in Goa in a hybrid format due to the pandemic. There was physical and virtual screening of 50 films out of 224 films across various categories.
