The very same question that popped up in the early 2000s when then Chief Minister, the late Manohar Parrikar, campaigned to get Goa to host the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) permanently, continues to dominate the debate about the festival even today nearly two decades later: What's in it for Goa?
Other than the footfall of visitors rising in the duration of the nine-day festival and the resultant spin-off for local businesses in and around Panaji, not many tangible advantages Goa has accrued from hosting the festival all these years can be documented. Barring some of the permanent infrastructure built like INOX and the facelift to the old GMC Complex including the Maquinez Palace and the DB Marg, there is not much that can be counted in terms of physical infrastructure.
But protagonists of the festival argue that IFFI certainly gives a huge boost to 'Brand Goa' both nationally and internationally. The governments, both State and the Centre, are nonetheless fixated with Goa having to host the festival permanently and Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, as manifested in his speech at the closing ceremony this year, has now set his sight on attracting film makers both national and international to the State for work.
"We will make Goa a heaven for filmmakers," was Sawant's punchline in his speech even as he exhorted Michael Douglas to consider Goa to shoot his next film at.
But those are words and time will tell if Sawant walks his talk and creates the infrastructure and conditions conducive for Goa to truly be recognised at par with venues like Cannes, Venice or Berlin as a film festival host as originally envisaged when it was picked to be a permanent host of IFFI.
