IFFI Goa: 40 countries, 100 films, Tabbu and Rekha along Goa Beaches

India's biggest film festival,39th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), since its opening Saturday, November 22, 2008, has been marred by controversies. Hindu extremists force MF Husain's Award-winning film to get cancelled. Observers say, it's business as usual as most of the IFFIs in the past were marred by bad organisation. "Look at the festival's website, it's awful. It's more embarrassing as IFFI is a government sponsored event of an IT-savvy India," commented one delegate.

Hardline Hindu activists succeeded in getting a documentary by M.F Husain, one of India's best known artists, taken off the schedule Tuesday, November 25, 2008. Artists and fimmakers are furious over what they see as the intimidation of filmmakers at the hands of a bunch of extremists.

They say the festival officials in a shameful manner stopped the screening of M.F. Husain's 1967 film "Through the Eyes of a Painter", which had been due to be shown Tuesday at the International Film Festival of India in the resort state of Goa. The film was a winner at the Berlin Film Festival. 

"The screening has been deferred for the time being as there were some objections to it," festival director S.M. Khan said.

Year after year, IFFI fails to raise its standards. There were reports of wrong booking on November 24 & 25, 2008. Computers at the ticket windows, in the cases of some important films, showed all seats were booked, though the auditorium turned out to be half empty. Power breakdowns were also common.

India's Union Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Anand Sharma and veteran film star Rekha were among the main guests at the inauguaration of the ten day festival. Films from Asia, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Africa are being screened in the competition section, judged by a jury headed by Hong Kong film director Peter Chan. Other jury members include Marco Muller (Venice), Niki Karimi (Iran), Lav Diaz (Singapore) and Bollywood star Tabassum Hashmi. About 6,000 delegates are likely to descend on Goa.

Early controversies

The film producers from India's North-East state Assam protested for what they called 'centre's (New Delhi) discriminatory attitude towards the North-East.

The Assamese filmamkers complained about scheduling an Assamese film 'Mon Jai' past 10 p.m. on Sunday night, the timing not suitable for the delegates.

Assamese filmmaker Gautam Saikia, who was supposed to make a presentation during the Indian Panorama screening of his film at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) on Sunday, missed the event after being denied entry into the theatre.

“Despite identifying myself to the volunteers at the entrance, they refused to let me go in. The screening of my film had started and I was supposed to make the presentation,” the renowned Assamese documentary filmmaker told local media.
Yarwing, a film in Kokborok language of Tripura by Joseph PulinthanathThe Government of India Press Release Over 225 films from more than thirty countries will be screened at the festival in several sections. Veteran actress Rekha will inaugurate the Festival in Panaji on 22 November in the presence of Goa Governor S S Sidhu, Chief Minister Digambar Kamath, and Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Minister Anand Sharma. While upcoming actress Amrita Rao will conduct the opening ceremony, Rekha will be assisted by Telugu actress Illina D Cruz, who is originally from Goa, in lighting the traditional lamp.

Talented actor Kamal Haasan will be the Chief Guest at the closing ceremony on 2 December at which the awards will also be presented. ‘Song of Sparrows’ by the eminent Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi will be the closing film. Around Rs 250 million is being spent by the Directorate of Film Festivals of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, which is organizing the Festival in collaboration with the Entertainment Society of Goa (on behalf of the Goa Government) and the Indian film industry.

A unique feature this year is the screening of four films made with the Taj Mahal – recognized once again recently as one of the seven wonders of the world – from the silent era in 1928 to the last one in 2005 made by Akbar Khan who himself will be attending the Festival.

The other films in ‘Taj Mahal: A Celluloid Journey’ will be Shiraj (silent film) - 1928, Shah Jahan –1964, and Taj Mahal –1963. The competition section will have 15 films from all over the world. These include My Mother’s Tears (Argentina/Germany), Rupantor (Transformation) (Bangladesh), The Shaft (China), Kanachivaram and Mahasatta (India), The Song of Sparrows (Iran), The Red Spot (Japan/Germany), Tulpan (Kazakhstan), Pensil (Malaysia), Ploning (Philippines), Akasa Kusum (Sri Lanka), and The Coffin (Thailand).

While the main attraction will be the 56 films in the Cinema of the World section, another interesting section is Film India Worldwide which will showcase films made by Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in collaboration with foreign filmmakers or made on Indian themes. The entries in this segment are Tandoori Love (Switzerland), Death Without Consent ( USA ), Barah Aana and Chaurasta-Cross Roads of Love (India). The films of eminent filmmakers Aki Kaurismaki (Finland), John Landis (USA) and Wong Kar Wai (Hong Kong) will be screened in the Foreign Retrospectives.

There will be special tributes to filmmakers Peter Chan, who is chairing the international jury, and Niki Karimi who is also a member of the jury. In addition, there will be 47 films (26 Feature Films and 21 Non-Features) in the Indian Panorama, the highest for any year since the Panorama was first started in 1978. Three highly lauded Hindi films on relevant social issues - ‘Taare Zameen Par’, ‘A Wednesday’ and ‘Summer of 2007’ - and the award-winning Kannada film ‘Gulabi Talkies’ form part of the 26 feature and 21 non-feature films of the Indian Panorama, the features being the highest since this section was introduced in 1978.

In addition, the Malayalam feature film ‘Pulijanmam’ by Priyanandan and the non-feature Bengali ‘Bishar Blues’ by Amitabh Chakraborty get automatic entry for having won the best film awards in their categories in the 54th National Film Awards. ‘Yarwing’, a film in Kokborok language of Tripura by Joseph Pulinthanath be the inaugural film of the Panorama Section.

The features include six in Malayalam, four each in Hindi and Tamil, three each in Marathi and Kannada, one each in Bengali, Assamese and Telugu, and one which is in English/Gujarati and Hindi. The award-winning Jayaraj is the only filmmaker to have films in both the feature and non-feature sections.

Apart from ‘Pulijanmam’, the Malayalam films are ‘Vilapangalkkappuram’ by T V Chandran, ‘Gulmohar’ by Jayaraj, ‘Atayalangal’ by M G Sasi, ‘Oru Pennum Randaanum’ by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, ‘Aakashagopuram’ by Manu S Kumaran, and ‘Katha Parayumpol’ by Mohanan. The Hindi films are ‘Summer 2007’ by Suhail Tatari, ‘a Wednesday’ by Neeraj Pandey, ‘Taare Zameen Par’ by Aamir khan, and ‘Jodha Akbar’ by Ashutosh Gowariker.

The Tamil films in addition to ‘Kanachivaram’ are ‘Kalloori’ by Balaji Sakthivel, ‘Mudhal Mudhal Mudhal Varai’ by Krishna Seshadri Gomatam, and ‘Billa’ by Vishnu Vardhan. The Kannada films include ‘Gulabi Talkies’ by Girish Kassarvalli which won the best Indian film award at the Tenth Osian’s-Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema, ‘Banada Neralu’ by Umashankara Swamy, and ‘Gubbachigalu’ bu Abhaya Simha.

Apart from ‘Mahasatta’, the Marathi films are ‘Dohaa’ by Pushkaraj Paranjape, and ‘Valu’ by Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni. Apart from ‘Yarwing’, the other films are the Bengali ‘Chaturanga’ by Suman Mukhopadhyay, the Assamese ‘Mon Jai’ by M.Maniram, the Teluigu ‘Mee Sreyobhilashi’ by V Eshwar Reddy, and ‘Little Zizou’ by Sooni Taraporevala which is in English, Gujarati and Hindi.

The non-features include seven in English, four in Hindi, two each in Bengali and Malayalam, and one each in Kannada, Manipuri, Urdu, apart from one with only music and another which is in Hindi, Bengal and English.

The English films include ‘Distant Rumblings’ by Bani Prakash Das on the remains of the Second World War in Manipur and Nagaland, ‘A Friend turned Foe’ by Gautam Saikia, ‘Divided Colours of a Nation’ by Umesh Aggarwal, ‘Four Women and a Room’ by Ambarien Al Qadar, ‘The Journalist and the Jehadi’ by Ramesh Sharma, ‘The Land of Rupshupas’ by A K Sidhpuri, and ‘Rehana: A Quest for Freedom’ by Gargi Sen and Priyanka Mukherjee. 'Dhin Tak Dha’ by ‘ShraddhaPasi’, ‘Apna Aloo Bazaar Becha’ by Pankaj H Gupta, ‘Children of the Pyre’ by Rajesh S Jala, and ‘Antardhwani’ by Jabbar Patel form the Hindi component.

The two Bengali films are ‘The Shop that sold Everything’ by Abhyuday Khaitan and ‘Yearn to Learn’ by S K Aboul Rajjak, while the Malayalam films are ‘Vellappokkathil’ by Jayaraj and ‘Memories, Movement and a Machine’ by K R Manoj. The others are the Kannada ‘Putti’ by Jacob Varghese, the Urdu ‘Parwaaz’ by Biju Vishwanath, and the Manipuri ‘Ratan Thiyam - the man of Theatre’ by Nirmala Chanu and Oken Amakcham, apart from ‘Three of Us’ by Umesh Kulkarni which only has music and ‘Remembering Bimal Roy’ by Joy Bimal Roy in Hindi, Bengali, and English. Six international acclaimed Indian films from the pre-1950 are also being screened from the Treasures of the National Film Archives of India.

Seven films of all-time veterans Dilip Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, B Saroja Devi and Tapan Sinha are being presented in Lifetime Classics to pay a tribute to these personalities for the Lifetime Honour they received from the Government to mark sixty years of Indian Independence. The Indian section will also have a special tribute to the legendary Bimal Roy with six films by or on him, and L V Prasad with two films. A special section will be a tribute to 75 years of Kannada cinema.

The Festival will also pay homage to film personalities G P Sippy, B R Chopra, F C Mehra, Jayashree Gadkar, Raghuvaran, Mahendra Kapoor, Jeeva, Sridhar, Vijay Tendulkar and Nabendu Ghosh who passed away over the past year. There will be special lecture on Devika Rani and Himanshu Rai who were pioneers in the era of Film Studios, by Kishwar Desai.

In addition to the main Festival, there is a Film Bazaar organized by the National Film Development Corporation, a competition for short films and a unique business platform for short and documentary films to give impetus to the short film movement created by the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG) and the Directorate of Film Festivals.(PIB Features)