International Film Festival of India finds renewed zeal in its 48th edition

Sun, Sand, Sea and now Cinema! India’s most aflame holiday destination, Goa is hosting Asia’s biggest and India’s oldest film festival, the 48^th International Film Festival of India organized by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting from November 20, 2017, to November 28, 2017. The ongoing festival has been in news for various controversial reasons. Filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh (Kahani fame) resigned as the head of the jury panel when ministry dropped director Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s ‘S Durga’ and Marathi film ‘Nude’ from screening. Ghosh was replaced by director Vivek Agnihotri. Other names associated with the festival are Jahnu Barua and Nagesh Kukunoor as the head of Steering and Technical Committees.

Kicked off in the presence of Smriti Irani, India’s Information and Broadcasting Minister and actor Shah Rukh Khan, the festival will honour illustrious Hindi Cinema actor Amitabh Bachchan with Personality of the Year award. The screenings were inaugurated with Iranian director Majid Majid’s ‘Beyond the Clouds’, large portions of which are shot in India. The entire list of films on showcase is of 195 films from 82 diverse countries, including seven films that were featured in BRICS Film Festival, 8 Canadian movies, and 15 most spectacular ones that will be competing for Golden and Silver Peacock Awards. The competing films possess an opportunity to win prize money of Rs. 1 crore. The Bioscope Village where the non-film fraternity of Goa can glance movies in 3 different theatres and skill studio workshops on filmmaking are some of the new features of the festival.

The theme for this year’s festival has been pre-decided as “Celebrating the future of cinema” with an exclusive Bond Retrospective that celebrates 50 years of the luscious British detective and screens 9 Bond Films. The audience can look forward to screenings such as Palm d’Or winner The Square, the famous novel influenced film Murder on the Orient Express, The Cakemaker, Beats Per Minute, Marathi film Kaasav and the closing film Pablo Cesar’s Thinking of Him.

We really hope that with renewed zeal and fervour the I&B Ministry managed IFFI bring new opportunities and ideas to the worlds largest cinema producing nation.