Countdown for Golden Peacock begins at IFFI

Panaji, Dec 2 (UNI) The 37th International Film Festival of India(IFFI) is coming to a close here tomorrow after an 11-day treat of the best in the world and Indian cinema in addition to various other kinds of entertainment.

Veteran actress Aparna Sen will preside over the closing ceremony where awards for the Best Film and Best Director will be given away.

Up for grabs at IFFI this year will be the Golden Peacock (Rs 10,00,000) award for the Best Film and the Silver Peacock (Rs 5,00,000) for the Most Promising Director.

A Special Jury Award awaits a director for his individual artistic contribution.

The 11-day festival had been inaugurated by veteran actor Shashi Kapoor here on November 23.

Though this year's IFFI, like the previous year's, had its own share of controversies and faux paux, it gave movie buffs, media and film industry people ample opportunity to interact with celebrated actors and filmmakers to discuss finer nunaces of the art of cinema.

The season had opened with the Penelope Cruz starrer comedy 'Volver', that bagged the 'Best Screenplay' and 'Best Actress' awards at the Festival de Cannes, 2006 and would end with Brad Pitt's 'Babel' winner of the 'Best Director' at Cannes again.

Interspersed between these two were critically acclaimed international films from Asia, Africa and Latin America competing for the Golden Peacock' while 40 countries from around the world showcased cinematic creativity in the Cinema of The World' section.

Along with retrospectives of Rolf de Heer, Javier Bardem, G Aravindan, IFFI paid homage to Indian luminaries S D Burman, Prithviraj Kapoor, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Satyajit Ray and music director Naushad and others who have contributed tremendously to the growth of Indian and film music.

The Festival presented a treat of 10 highest grossing Indian movies, thus providing them quality international exposure.

'Missed Call' by Mridul Toolsidas and Vinay Subramanian had opened the Indian panorama section, which included five Malayalam films and three Tamil films.

The mainstream Indian cinema section featuring 12 blockbusters of various Indian languages was inaugurated by actress Sridevi on November 25, with Rang De Basanti being the inaugural film.

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

The 11-day event screened a total of around 200 films from 40 countries including 40 Indian films- 20 feature and 20 non-feature - in the panorama section. Tamil Film 'Srigaram' by Sharada Ramanathan and 'Sonam' by upcoming filmmaker Ahsan Muzid in Arunachali dialect Monpa represented India in the Asian, African and Latin American Competition.

The opening film of the non-feature section was 'And the World Remained Silent' directed by Ashok Pandit.

The Panorama section also included 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 were 'Thanmatra'by Jessi, Eakantham' by Madhu Kaithapuram, 'Saira' by Biju, 'Nottam' by Sashi Paravoor and 'Drishtantham' by M P Sukumaran Nair.

There were 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 had three entries --Sringaram,' 'Aadumkoothu' by T V Chandran and 'Dhavamai Dhavamirunthu' by Cheran.

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

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

Some of the non-feature films included in the Indian panorama were'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 (Malayalam) by Jacob Verghese.

The international jury comprised eminent Australian director Rolf De Heer (Chairman), Mr Vincent Maraval, Producer, Co-Founder of Wild Bunch, France, Mr Olivier Assayas, Award winning director from France and Mr Jahnu Barua, Award winning Director from Asom, India.

Based on its world reputation as a tourist destination, with its unique flavour of European lifestyle co-existing with multi-cultural ethnic sensibilities, Goa is now slated to be a permanent venue for the Film Festival, but all through the festival, there were also notes of disagreement with this proposal, especially from the south Indian film industry.

Since 1952, India has hosted 36 International Film Festivals, both competitive and non-competitive.

These festivals became annual events from 1975 onwards.

The Festival is being organised by the Directorate of Film Festivals, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, in collaboration with the State Government of Goa and the Indian Film Industry The Festival is recognised by the International Federation of Film Producers' Associations (FIAPF).

UNI