40th International Film Festival of India (iffi-09) Goa Diary by Harish Sharma

Online, December 16, 2009 (Newswire.com) - The main attraction of the 40th International Film Festival of India this time was the participation of Academy Award Winner Ben Kingsley in IFFI. The media stayed in Goa till the last date only to have an exclusive interaction with the "Gandhi" fame Hollywood actor. Although, my fellow media friends are as old as 27 and the film "Gandhi" was released in 1982, but the excitement and enthusiasm seen in the media proved that they've watched the movie a number of times like me.

Ben Kingsley is soon going to make a comeback in Amitabh Bachchan starrer "Teen Patti" and also in "Taj" starring Aishwarya Rai. Film "Red Alert" produced by T.P Agarwal and directed by Anant Mahadeven gained immense popularity in the film festival. The tickets of this film got sold out within 2 hours of the opening of the ticket counter leaving a handful of journalists disappointed.

Goa film festival honored the great veteran actress "Sharmila Tagore" on completing 50 years in the film industry. However, she seemed disappointed and expressed that the film festival should be organized under a notable film star and the festival should be held in Goa as International Films are not appreciated much.

This time the film festival was enthralling and attracted a lot of Goans as well as the tourists. There was a food court made right outside the festival campus along with other attractive stalls for the visitors. Even Abhishek Bachchan was spotted at the festival as he came to meet Mani Ratnam, director of his upcoming film "Ravan". Regular at the IFFI, ace film maker Mani Ratnam came to participate in the Knowledge Series of Film Bazar organized by the NFDC. This year the Hong Kong Trade Development Corporation, a delegation of distributors from Europa Cinemas, and the American Film Institute's 20/20 program will be present at Film Bazaar were present at the Film Bazaar to expand their global film network. However, the information on web and mobile digital distribution crashed at the Baazar.

On the 75th anniversary of the Assamese film industry, various Assamese films were screened in IFFI and the especially the first Assamese film "Joymati" intrigued a lot of audience. Normally, all regional films are shown with English sub-titles but this some of the regional films shown didn't have any sub-title against the systematic procedure of the festival.

There were some International films like "Guilt" and "4-3-2-1" which didn't appeal the audience that much and the hall turned almost empty after 30-40 mins. The selection committee should now focus on the quality of films the select for such a prestigious festival irrespective of them being international films. Nevertheless, there were some fantastic movies like the Chinese film "Wheat" and a film from Thailand "Best of Time" and also "Nora's Will", a film from Mexico.

All films by USA based director Gurinder Chadha were screened at the festival and Gurinder Chadda had a reason to smile all the way at the festival since all her films went houseful. The film festival was inaugurated by the Information and Broadcasting minister, Ambika Soni along with evergreen actress Waheeda Rehman, Ghajini fame heroine Asin, famous actor Nana Patekar and Digambar Kamat, Chief Minister of Goa were present to grace the event.

The inauguration followed with speeches of all these stars and Aseen couldn't stop praising Waheeda Rehman but when she was interviewed by the reporters, she revealed that she hasn't seen even a single film of Waheeda Rehman.

The Chief Minister was also hardly present at the festival unlike last time, when he used to hang out at the food court like a normal visitor which was well-appreciated by the Media.
Altogether, IFFI was not up to the mark this time as the media was less in number due to the 1st anniversary of 26/11 in Mumbai so the coverage was quite less. It would be much better if the dates of Goa film festival change from next year for a massive coverage as the media will focus on 26/11 every year.

- Harish Sharma