The 10-day International Film Festival of India, opening in Goa on November 24, will present a wide range of entries to whet the appetite of film lovers, reports Saibal Chatterjee

A still from Amol Palekar’s Paheli, India’s official entry for the Oscars

The Mandovi riverfront is a great place to be if you want to mix some fun with films.

As the cliché goes, Goa promises oodles of fun, frolic, festivity and froth. But what about the commodity that makes a film festival—films?

Goa doesn’t have a film industry of its own. Filmgoers here constitute only a minuscule percentage of the national aggregate. The screening facilities in the capital city are still a trifle stretched.

Yet, if the wonderfully warm and enjoyable show that the state put up on the Mandovi riverfront in Panaji last year is anything to go by, one can be sure that there will be no dearth of enthusiasm.

Add to that the fact that the 10-day 36th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), scheduled for kick-off on November 24, has all the trappings of a cinematic feast to whet the appetite of film lovers, and the picture is complete.

IFFI Goa 2005, despite having taken its own sweet time to get into its groove for reasons political and administrative, might not turn out to be as big a washout as some sceptics had feared. There is no reason to believe that Panaji cannot live up to the ‘permanent IFFI venue’ tag that it now carries.

Some Goans feel that a "trade fair" meant for industry folk is fine, but a Cannes-like carnival isn’t. Not only is that too ambitious but it’s also completely gratuitous, they argue.

But away from the spiralling politics of the film festival, much will hinge on the quality of films that the 36th IFFI manages to attract for its centrepiece Cinema of the World section and the Asian/African/Latin American Competition.

In a special tribute to Ismail Merchant, films like A Room with a View will be screened

As things stand, 50-odd films from 35 countries will constitute the Cinema of the World section. Other sections of the festival are expected to screen about 150 more films.

Indian Panorama will, as has already been widely reported, showcase 21 feature films and 15 non-features.

The composition of a five-member jury for the Competition section has already been finalised. Celebrated 63-year-old Chilean filmmaker Miguel Littin, last seen at IFFI in the late 1990s, will head the panel.

The other members of the jury are French director Alain Corneau, Indian filmmaker Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Iranian actor Faramarz Gharibian and Austrian director Sabine Derflinger.

India will be represented in the Competition section by two films – Nagesh Kukunoor’s Hindi-language Iqbal and Kamal’s Malayalam drama, Perumazhakkalam.

For lovers of Bollywood films, the IFFI options include Amol Palekar’s colourful, folk tale-inspired Paheli, India’s official entry for the Oscars, and Madhur Bhandarkar’s National Award-winning box office success story, Page 3.

The 36th IFFI will introduce a brand-new section, NFA Gold, a showcase of Swarna Kamal-winning films of the past 50-odd years. This year, the first two National Award winners—Shyamchi Aai and Mirza Ghalib— will be screened.

A practice started successfully a couple of years ago—holding premieres of new Indian films—will also be taken forward this year.

Although there is no clarity yet on the actual premieres line-up, among the films being mentioned are Aparna Sen’s 15 Park Avenue (English) and Anjan Das’s Faltu (Bengali). Efforts are also on to get a few Mumbai films into the picture.

Shadows of Time, a Bengali-language film made by German director Florian Gallenberger, who was a jury member in last year’s IFFI in Goa, will be the closing night film of the festival.

In the retrospective section, a special tribute will be paid to the recently deceased film producer Ismail Merchant. Films like In Custody (directed by Merchant himself), A Room with a View, Heat and Dust and Remains of the Day, will be screened.

Two other Indian film personalities who passed away in the last 12 months—the multifaceted Sunil Dutt and southern legend Gemini Ganeshan—will also make their presence felt at Goa IFFI 2005. Reshma Aur Shera, starring and directed by Dutt, and Parthiban Kanavu, a sweeping historical melodrama featuring Gemini Ganeshaan in the lead, will be screened in remembrance of their contribution to Indian cinema.

A six-film retrospective of classics directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee is also on the IFFI 2005 bill of fare.

The foreign retrospectives will include the films of French actress Isabelle Huppert and selections from Iran and Germany.

Goa, the land of sun, sand and sangfroid, sure has the potential to inject some fun into the concept of a film festival.

HOME