37 International Film Festival of India begins on Nov 23 in Goa

Kolkata, Nov 3 (UNI) About 180 films in seven categories and from all across the world will be screened in the 37th International Film Festival of India, to be held in Goa from November 23 to December three.

Announcing this here this evening, Goa Minister for Art and Culture Digambar Kamat and one of the main organisers in the eleven day event said award winning comedy ''Volver'', starring Penelope Cruz, would be the opening film of the country's largerst film festival, while Brad Pit's ''Babel'', the winner of the best Director award at Cannes, would be the concluding movie to bring the curtain down of the festival after several days of fun and fiesta.

Stating that this year's festival had been divided into seven broad categories including the competitive and non-competitive feature films from all the continents, Cinema of the world, Restrospective of several renowned film makers including Rolf De Heer, Javier Bardem, Govind Arvindan, Prithviraj Kapoor, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Satyajit Ray, Indian Panorama and mainstream Indian Cinema including the children's films and cartoon movies.

Elaborating other highlights of the festival, being held for the fourth consecutive year in Goa after the Centre had accorded it the status of Permanent venue,Mr Kamat said the Golden Peacock award carrying a cash prize of Rs one million will be given to the best film in the festival, while the Silver Peacock award with a purse of Rs 500,000 would be given to the Best Director along with the best Jury award, which also carried a cash prize of Rs 500,000.

He said in the wake of increasing security threat in the festival in the backdrop of the Mumbai serial blasts and extremism in different parts of the country, the Goa government had left no stone unturned to ensure fool proof security during the Festival days.

Moreover, Mr Kamat said as a precautionary measure his government had already imposed a red alert throughout the state and deployed a large number of additional security personnel in all the venues including those in Panaji, Margao, Vasco and Maraca.

About his future plans, Mr Kamat said the Goa government was also setting up a 4,000 capacity state of the art convention centre at Panaji as the main venue of the annual event.

Incidentally last year a total of 200 films were screened in last year's festival, the Goa Minister said adding that the number of films was lesser this year because of the stricter norms for their selection.

Among others well known film-maker, Anjan Dutta was present on the occasion.

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