Record number of 'delegates' creating problem at IFFI

Panaji, Nov 26 (UNI) Organisers of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) at Goa like the Entertainment Society of Goa, (ESG) and the Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) already bogged down with criticism of lack of co-ordination amongst themselves are battling another problem.

Unmanageable number of delegates is resulting in frayed tempers at various venues of the festival.

Some ugly scenes were created at Inox yesterday during the screening of the film 'Betweeen Darkness' and light when genuine delegates failed to get entry into the auditorium.

''It seems every Goan has been issued the delegates pass, which was creating difficulties for the genuine ones,'' said a delegate representing a local entertainment and cultural organisation.

The delegation registration at the festival which kicked off here from November 23 has crossed a mind boggling figure of 7056.

While the total seating capacity for screening of films at Kala Academy and Inox is around 1800.

Mr Sudhir Nandgaonkar, who is the director of festivals like Asian Film Festival and Mumbai International Film Festival held in Mumbai every year says that such a high number of delegate registration is a welcome sign.

However, he is of the opinion that given the existing seating capacity of 1800, delegate registration should not cross 3,600.

''Otherwise,there is bound to be a crowd and serpentine queues before screening of good quality movies.

Mr Nandgaonkar says ticketed shows which is a custom in other film festivals including Cannes is not possible in India.

'' awareness about international cinema is already low in our country. With a delegate fee of Rs 200, the attempt is to familiarise cinema going audience about film culture in other countries. Hence, if there is a good movie, there is bound to be crowd,''he pointed out.

Ms Nandini Paliwal, CEO of ESG says that the paucity of infrastructure is only a matter of time. The final work order for construction of the state of the art convention centre at Dona Paula will be issued in a few days and the actual construction will take atleast 18 months.

Jyothi Ventakesh, a freelance journalist based in Mumbai who has been covering IFFI for the last 25 years, says, ''The maximum number of delegates so far has been around 4000. I feel that the delegate fee should be doubled to Rs 400 to lower the number of delegate presence till the infrastructure problem is sorted out,'' he felt.

Mumbai- based short filmmaker Ramesh Tekwani was of the view that the number of films should be limited so that all delegates get to watch good movies in more than one screening.

UNI MR/NAZ YA HT1045