Smooth Sailing for the International Film Festival of India

IFFI - 2007 has been a smooth affair but for minor irritants. This was the general view at the media interaction held by Chief secretary of Goa, Shri J. P. Singh and Director, DFF, Smt. Neelam Kapur held today with a view to apprise the media of their assessment and also to elicit media response on various issues related to the Festival.

Shri J. P. Singh said that the whole effort has been to improve film culture in the State so that Goa attains recognition at the international level. He said, the joint effort of DFF and the Government of Goa greatly improved the content as well as infrastructure for IFFI - 2007. He said, Film Bazaar this year has been a tremendous success and hoped that National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) would further strengthen the role of Film Bazaar in future. The software used in the Festival this year has been a great leap forward and is likely to result in smoother operations in the coming years. The newly introduced system of ticketing was a great success and vastly facilitated the operations, he added.

Smt. Neelam Kapur in her remarks, said that plans are already under discussion to bring about improvements during the next year. Steps for facilitation of delegate and media registration are being examined and would be put in place in due course. We need to work on improving the international participation in the Festival, she said. To the suggestion of raising prize money to invite larger international participation, Smt. Kapur said, it was among the measures being contemplated in this regard.

She clarified that mainstream cinema was taken off from this year’s Festival by the Film Federation of India and its affiliated bodies due to certain reservations/constraints on their part. Smt. Kapur felt that greater publicity is needed to ensure more entries in the Indian Panorama section so that the number of entries is larger and diversity of Indian cinema can be truly reflected. The publication of Festival daily news letter in Hindi will be looked into, the Director said.

As suggested by the Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs, Shri P. R. Dasmunsi a special screening of Hindi film ‘Goal’ will be done for the football lovers besides delegates at the Festival, tomorrow.

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