'The Old Barber' bags Golden Peacock, An Kung Lee silver peacock

Panaji, Dec 3 (UNI) Chinese film 'The Old Barber' directed by Hasi Chaolu won the coveted Golden Peacock award for the best feature film and Korean Director An Kung Lee won the silver peacock for the most promising director at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which came to an end after an 11-day star-studded celebration of cinema here today.

Hasi will get richer by Rs 10,00,000 while An Lee will take home Rs 5,00,000 The Special Jury award went to Bangladeshi film 'Nirontor (Forever Flows) for his individual artistic contribution. It also bagged a Silver Peacock and cash prize of Rs 5 lakh.

Noted filmmaker Apana Sen was the chief guest at the award ceremony.

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.

Perceived as India's Cannes, the IFFI showcased the best in the world, Bollywood and regional Indian cinema. It had been inaugurated by veteran actor Shashi Kapur here on November 23. Though this year's IFFI too had its own share of controversies like those of previous years', it gave movie buffs, media and representatives of the film industry ample opportunity to interact with celebrated actors and filmmakers to discuss the 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 ended with Brad Pitt's 'Babelwinner' which won in the Best Director category at Cannes.

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.

Several renowned figures of world and Indian cinema participated in the festival. Besides Rolf de Heer, prominent among those who attended this year's IFFI were Jane Campion, Director of controversial Kate Winslet starrer 'Holy Smoke' and Oscar winner British filmmaker Stephen Woolley, Directors from south India T V Chandran and Girish Kesarvalli, Jabbar Patel, Ramesh Deo, Gajendra Ahire and Chitra Palekar(Marathi), Saibal Mitra(Bengali), Indian born Paris-based filmmaker Vijay Singh and Green Oscar winner Mike Pandey. Popular bollywood stars Salman Khan, Esha Deol, Priyanka Chopra, Juhi Chawla, Shilpa Shetty, Anil Kapur, Mahima Choudhary, Manisha Koirala, Atul Kulkarni, Diya Mirza, Prabhu Deva, Rituparna Sengupta and Nandita Das besides the evergreen Dev Anand added a touch of glitz and glamour by their presence.

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 annual Festival.

However, allthrough the festival there were notes of disagreement with this proposal too, mainly on the premise that the place does not have the required infrastructure and film culture.

Entertainment Society of Goa and Goa chief minister Pratapsinh Rane strongly overruled such objections saying all that will be acquired with time.

There were also complaints from the regional film industry about the dominance of bollywood in the festival in terms of the recognition and importance to its actors and directors. However, the Directorate of the Film Festival said that south Indian and regional films had been given more than adequate space in the Indian Panorama, so the charges were not true.

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