Shashi Kapoor to open IFFI;'Corporate' among Indian entry

By Staff
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New Delhi, Oct 26: The much awaited 37th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) will be inaugurated by veteran film actor Shashi Kapoor at Goa on November 23.

Bollywood film 'Corporate' by Madhur Bhandarkar, Kannada film maker Girish Kasaravalli's 'Nayi Neralu'and Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali film 'Dosar' are among 20 feature films in the Indian Panorama at the Film Festival.

There will be special retropective of Prithviraj Kapoor's films, and also a special screening of Richard Attenborough's Gandhi to mark the centenary of Satyagraha movement launched by the Father of Nation.

''This year's film festival will be inaugurated by Mr Shashi Kapoor and Ms Aparna Sen will be the chief guest at the closing ceremony,'' Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Das Munsi told newspersons after he was presented the list of film entries in the Indian Panorama here today.

The inaugural ceremony of last year's IFFI was mired in controversy after super star Amitabh Bachchan's name as chief guest was withdrawn at the last moment and instead of him, octogenarian actor Dev Anand inaugurated the event.

The ten-day event will screen a total of 40 Indian films, 20 feature and 20 non-feature.

Tamil Film 'Srigaram' by Sharada Ramanathan and 'Sonam' by upcoming film maker Ahsan Muzid in Arunachali dialect Monpa will represent India in the Asian, African and Latin American Competition.

'Missed Call' by Mridul Toolsidas and Vinay Subramanian will open the panorama section, which has five Malayalam films and three Tamil films.

The opening film of the non-feature section would be 'And the World Remained Silent' directed by Ashok Pandut.

Mr Dasmunsi said the sections were made by the jury without pressure from any quarter.

He said the Ministry would invite Gandhi director Richard Attenborough to the festival at which a special screening of the film will be held to mark the centenary of the 'Satyagraha' movement.

Later, talking to reporters, Chairperson of the jury for the feature film section Saeed Akhtar Mirza defended their selection of films, saying that they had made broad rainbow selection of movies.

Replying to a question, he said he could not claim 100 per cent correctness in the selection as among such a vast array of works, some are bound to be left out.

''We had to select 20 films. We could not include everything. We have done the best we could do,'' he said.

The Panorama section also includes Assamese director Manju Borah's historical film 'Joymoti' and Pankuj Parashar's Hindi film 'Banaras:A Mystic Love Story'. The Malayalam films in the Panorama are 'Thanmatra' by Jessi, 'Eakantham' by Madhu Kaithapuram, 'Saira' by Biju, 'Nottam' by Sashi Paravoor and 'Drishtantham' by M P Sukumaran Nair.

There are three Marathi films - 'Bayo' by Gajendra Ahire, 'Maati Maay' by Chitra Palekar and 'Badha' by Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukthankar - in the 20-film panorama package.

Tamil also has three entries---'Sringaram', 'Aadumkoothu' by T V Chandran and 'Dhavamai Dhavamirunthu' by Cheran.

K Sathyanarayan's 'Hope' is the only Telugu entry.

Besides 'Dosar', Bengali has one more entry in 'Songshoy' directed by Saibal Mitra.

The panorama feature film entries were announced here today by jury chairperson and Hindi film maker Saeed Akhtar Mirza in the presence of Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi.

Other members of the jury were Ms Aditi Deshpande, Pulak Gogoi, George Mathew, Vasanth SM and U Radhakrisnan.

The jury for the non-feature section, which also has 20 entries, was headed by Bengali film maker Raja Mitra. The members were Anjan Bose, Vinod Ganatra and Iftikhar Ahmad.

As many as 96 features films came up before the jury for the final selection, while the number was 102 for non-feature films.

Some of the non-feature films which have been included in the Indian panorama are 'Between Darkness and Light'(English) by Ananya Biswas, 'Chabhiwali Pocket watch(Hindi/Urdu) by Vibhu Puri, 'Hans Akela' by Jabbar Patel, Kati Patang(Music only) by Arun Gingade and Andhium(Malyalam) by Jacob Verghese.

UNI

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