IFFI begins at Goa

39^th International film festival of India inaugurated at Goa by litting the lamp (Jyothi Prajwalana) by the yester year’s glamorous queen Rekha on Saturday. Chief Minister of Goa, Digambar Kamath, honourable governor of the stae, S.S.Sidhu and union Minister of information and broadcasting Anand Sharma are the dignitaries graced the occasion and prominent film fraternity from India and abroad participated in the function.Tollywood hero-ine Ileana D Cruz helped to Rekha in litting the Lamp. Hindi Hero-ine Amritha Rao compeered the function.

In this festival a number of 104 pictures will to be showcased during the 10days extravaganza, dedicated to the world celluloid. As a opening fest,, the Chinese picture “The War Lords” has screened. Jetli portrayed as a hero in this picture. In world cinema category, 65pictures will be screened which has come from 40countries.Some pictures produced by our NRI s with the collaboration of foreign companies will be also screened. Our Indian Panorama has selected a total of 46films as 26 films in feature films category and 20 films in the non-feature films category will be screened. Out of 26 films in the feature films category, a only one Telugu picture:”Mee Shreyobhilaashi’ will be screened. Recently acquired National Best film award picture “Puli Janmam’ (Malayalam) and National Best non-feature film award picture “Bishar blues” (Bengali) will be screened. This festival will end on 2^nd of December.

The retrospectives in Indian Programming include Bimal Roy and L.V.Prasad for their centenary years and 75years of Kannada cinema. During this festival, Indian film veterans Dilip kumar,Latha Mangeshkar,B.Saroja Devi and Tapan Sinha will be conferred lifetime achievement awards constituted by the Government of India to commemorate the 60^th year Indian Independence.Homages would also be paid to legendary film personalities like G.P.Sippy,B.R.Chopra,F.C.Mehra,Jayasree Gadkar,Raghuvaran,Mahendra kapoor,Jeeva,Sridhar,Vijay Tendulkar and Nabendu Ghosh.Meanwhile,the National Film Development Corporation(NFDC) has organised a film bazaar which will give an opportunity for film makers for networking.