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Goa IFFI to pack in 'hours of fun and entertainment' (IFFI CURTAIN RAISER)
By Frederick Noronha,

Panaji, Nov 21 Goa is getting a hurried fresh coat of paint ahead of the 11-day International Film Festival of India (IFFI) beginning here Thursday that promises to pack in hours of sheer entertainment and fun.

The 37th IFFI, ending Dec 3, is showcased as "India's Cannes" and is expected to bring in crowds of film buffs, say organisers.

Goa has been host to the annual festival since 2004 and is now the permanent venue
   

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The event will be launched with a carnival-like parade alongside the riverfront in state capital Panaji.

Film bazaars, children's workshops, street animation, music concerts and open air beach screenings will accompany the movies and lure in those disappointed with the already-scarce "delegate" passes. Organisers are promising about 240 hours of "sheer entertainment and fun".

But residents near the venue are upset over a garbage-dumping site and have vowed to carry out protests.

Goa's IFFI celebrations this year aren't on the same high note as had been in its first year when then Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister Manohar Parrikar took personal interest.

This year's festival will include a competition for feature films by Asian, African and Latin American directors.

Organisers expect the festival to provide a "common platform" for the filmmakers of the world to project their excellence in film art, contribute to appreciation of different film cultures, and of course promote friendship.

Thursday evening inaugural will witness an air display by the Indian Navy's Sagar Pawan Formation Acrobatic Team involving three indigenous Kiran jets.

The chief guest will be Shashi Kapoor, scion of the influential Kapoor film dynasty of Bollywood. The guests of honour will be popular Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor and Bengali film actor Prosenjit Chatterjee.

Stars expected for the opening include Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Bipasha Basu, Dia Mirza, Malaika Arora Khan, Soha Ali Khan and Esha Deol (all from Bollywood), Prabhu Deva (south India), Manoj Tiwari (Bhojpuri film industry), Marathi actors Sachin and Supriya and Harbajan Mann of Punjab.

IFFI's local host in Goa is the Entertainment Society of Goa, which was set up by the state government in 2004. Its goal is to frame an entertainment policy and to help cultivate Goa into a world-class international entertainment nerve centre of the country.

Goa, argues the state government, has a reputation as a tourist destination with its unique flavour of European lifestyle co-existing with multi-cultural ethnic sensibilities. Goa was a Portuguese colony for 1510-1961.

Since 1952, India has hosted 36 IFFIs, both competitive and non-competitive. "

Spanish film 'Volver' to kick off IFFI
Panaji, A festive mood has enveloped Goa ahead of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which kicks off Thursday with the screening of "Volver", a feted Spanish film by director Pedro Almodóvar that was among entries competing for the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.

IFFI 2006 is divided into the competition (feature films by directors from Asia, Africa and Latin America), cinema of the world, retrospectives, tributes, focus, Indian panorama and mainstream Indian cinema sections.

There will also be a film bazaar, an initiative of recent years to promote and sell Indian films.

On Tuesday, pre-festival screenings got underway "for press and delegates only" at the Inox, a four-screen multiplex set up two years ago just on the eve of this state becoming the host of IFFI, which relocated here from New Delhi.

For those who manage to get in, there will be four 'pre-festival' screenings each on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Accommodating long queues has been a challenge for Goa, once criticised as not having a sufficient film culture. The state has been unable so far to incorporate its existing
mostly-run-down cine theatres as part of the festival.

Showing on Tuesday are Australian film "The Tracker" (2002) by Rolf de Heer, a drama set in 1922 in outback Australia in which a racist White colonial policeman (Gary Sweet) uses the tracking ability of aboriginal tracker (David Gulpilil) to find the murderer of a white women.

Also showing will be "A Thousand Kisses" (by Willem Van de Sande Bakhuyzen, The Netherlands), "Not Here To Be Loved" (France, Stephane Brize) and "Fireworks" (Asghar Farhadi, Iran).

Iranian cinema (or Persian cinema), which has won several international awards, is considered as one of the most renowned in the world. Critics sometimes rank Iran as the world's most important national cinema artistically, with a significance that compares to Italian neo-realism and similar movements in past decades.

On Wednesday, "The Little Lieutenant" (France, Xavier Beauvois), "The Wandering Shadows" (Colombia, Ciro Guerra), "Love Talk" (South Korea, Lee Yoon-Ki), and "Jasminum" (Poland, Jan Jakub Kolski) will be screened.

For the best film director, the Golden Peacock award will carry a cash prize of Rs.1 million.

The 'most promising director' gets a silver peacock and Rs.500,000. There is also a special jury award, of a silver peacock and cash prize of a similar amount for an individual's artistic contribution.

At Cannes, "Volver", won two awards - best actress (shared by the six main actresses) and best screenplay. It was premiered in March at Puertollano, where the filming had
taken place. It also received a standing ovation at Cannes.

Director Almodóvar has said of the story that "it is precisely about death... More than about death itself, the screenplay talks about the rich culture that surrounds death in the region of La Mancha, where I was born. It is about the way (not tragic at all) in which various female characters, of different generations, deal with this culture."

The film got rave reviews when it was released in Spain. Fotogramas, the country's top film magazine, gave it a five-star rating. By mid-June 2006, the film had grossed $12 million at the Spanish box office.

Meanwhile, steady streams of local film buffs are returning home disappointed with not getting passes, while the lucky few have managed to pick up theirs for the 37th IFFI.
 

IANS