The 46th International Film Festival of India, that
began in Goa on November 20, draws to close today with a Closing Ceremony
paying a musical tribute to the spirit of Cinema and screening of the Closing
Film ‘The Clan’ from Argentina.
Following are the key highlights of the 10 day long festival.
·
UNESCO Fellini Medal
for the first time to be awarded in India at IFFI 2015
- The Kingdom of Spain was the
focus country of IFFI 2015
- Total No of Delegate
Registered-7000
- International Jury headed by the
chairperson, Shekhar Kapur along with UK based director, Micheal Radford,
Palestinian based Israel director, Ms. Suha Arraf, German Actress, Julia
Jentsch and South Korean filmmaker Jeon Kyu-Hwan.
- The 13-member
Feature Jury was headed by Chairperson, Aribam Syam Sharma while the
7-member Non-Feature jury was led by Chairperson, Rajendra
Janglay.
- Total no. of premiers (World,
International, Asia and India) during the festival – 120
- This year the festival hosted
more than 820 film delegates including 540 national and 280 international
directors, actors, producers, technicians including Oscar Academy members
and Hollywood experts
- Total numbers of films received
as entries was unprecedented 790 films.
- Final selection of films - 182
(Foreign Cinema)
- Countries representing – 90
- Opening Film- The Man who knew Infinity, Mid Fest Film-The
Danish Girl was widely appreciated by media and audience.
- Closing Film- El Clan was selected to be screened in
the main competition section of the 72nd Venice International Film
Festival where director Pablo Trapero won the Silver Lion. The film was
selected as the Argentine entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the
88th Academy Awards.
- 26 Official
Oscar Entries besides several big films from Cannes, Berlin, Toronto and
Locarno film Festival
- 47 films in
Indian Panorama section (Feature and Non-feature)
- New Horizons
from North-East- A special retrospective on ace filmmaker Aribam Shyam
Sharma and special section on new generation filmmakers from the
North-East
- This year, out
of 15 films in International Competition, 5 films are official Oscar
entries from different countries. The list includes Colombia’s ‘El abrazo
de la serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent)’ directed by Ciro Guerra,
France’s ‘Mustang’ directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Germany’s Oscar entry
‘Im Labyrinth des Schweigens (Labyrinth of Lies)’ directed by Giulio
Ricciarelli, Iceland’s Oscar entry ‘Rams’ directed by Grímur Hákonarson
and Serbia’s ‘Enclave’ directed by Goran Radovanovic.
- Lifetime Achievement Award to Oscar winning Russian filmmaker,
actor and head of Russian Cinematographer’s Union, Nikita Mikhalkov for his contributions to world cinema at the
46th International Film Festival of India. The festival also had a special
Tribute section on his selective films- Burnt by the Sun, Sunstroke,
Barber of Siberia and Oblomob.
- Centenary
Film Personality Award conferred
upon Internationally acclaimed Music composer Illayaraja during the Opening Ceremony
- ICFT-UNESCO
Seminar on Film and Cultural Diversity was held with participation of Mr.
Philippe Queau (France), Mr. Charles Vallerand (Canada), Ms. Sharada
Ramanathan (India)
- Interactive
Meeting with Industry Professionals on Shooting in USA in collaboration
with FICCI
- Multimedia
exhibition on National Film Heritage Mission being organized by DAVP and
NFAI
·
Special
Retrospective on Shashi Kapoor offered glimpses of the work of the legendary actor Shashi
Kapoor and screened his 8 films at IFFI 2015. Junoon (1978) will be screened as
the opening film of the section followed by New Delhi Times (1986), Utsav (1984), In Custody (Muhafiz)
(1993), Kalyug (1981), Deewar (1975), Shakespearwallah (1965) and House holder
(1963).
·
Three member delegation from
the Oscar Academy visited India for the first time to present important master
classes. Master Classes by Oscar
Academy members and Hollywood experts like Mark Mangini, Milt Shefter,
Humphrey Dixon and Nancy Bhishop on varied topics like sound designing,
film archive, film editing and casting.
·
Eminent National and International
film celebrities like Anil Kapoor, Illayaraaja, Sonakshi Sinha, Kabir Khan, Dev Patel, Mark Mangini, Ayushmann
Khurrana, Aditi Rao Hydari, Jackie Shroff, Nana Patekar, Sachin Pilgaonkar,
Subash Ghai, Shekhar Kapur, Kaushik Ganguly, Edward Pressman, Nikita Mikhalkov,
Michael Radford, Julia
Jentsch, Suha Arraf, Rajkumar Hirani, Priyadarshan, Vetrimaaran, Madhur
Bhandarkar, Anand L Rai, Shyam Benegal, KK Senthil Kumar and Shankar Mahadevan
to name a few.
·
Featured a special section
‘Restored Classics’ to highlight National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) - an initiative of National Film Archive of India
(NFAI) envisioned by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. The
initiative is aimed to protect and preserve the rich and diverse cinematic
heritage of the country for future generation.
·
First Cut, a specially curated
selection of films representing THE FIRST WORK OF THE emerging talent in world
cinema. The section featured emerging
foreign filmmakers including Brian Perkins (Film - Golden Kingdom, USA),
Michael Klette (Film - Solness, Germany) and Piotr Chrzan (Film – Moskvich-My
Love, Poland) among others.
·
An exclusive section ‘Womenclature
of Cinema’ showcased the films by Indian women filmmakers. Included best
work of women film makers like Anjali Menon (Manjadikuru), Aparna Sen (36
Chowringhee Lane), Zoya Akhtar (Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara) amongst others.
- New Media
initiatives like live streaming of Press Conferences, Festival Mobile App and other initiatives for instant information,
content and updates to guests and delegates.
- Despite having
so many screenings of movies, the cinema halls were housefull
everyday.
- Path-breaking
Indian directors like Rajkumar Hirani, Madhur Bhandarkar, Shyam Benegal,
Vettrimaran, Kaushik Ganguly, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Priyadarshan, Anand
L Rai in a special series titled “In Conversation”. The series
provided a unique opportunity for audience to interact with their favorite
filmmakers and film experts.
- The festival
showcased a special package on Contemporary Argentinian Cinema. The
list of film that screened includes Argentina Zonda, El
Cinco, Intimate Witness, Mexican Operation, Rapture and Wild Tales.
- Open Forum and
daily Press conferences were attended by large audience and media persons.
- Closing
ceremony to host the delegates from Argentina, Nigeria and Consulate
General of Turkey. Opening ceremony was attended by delegates from Spain
and Israel.
- Live Social
Media interactions with national and international celebrities.
- Foreign and
Indian delegates were delighted with the selection of movies in different
sections.
- Best of world
cinema was showcased to Indian audience and best of Indian cinema were
appreciated by international delegates
- A.R. Rahman
was the Chief Guest of the evening.
Noted filmmakers and international celebrities Pablo Ceaser, John
D. Bails, Guneet Monga, Michael Ward, Nishith Takia, Ioanna Stais, Young
Woo Kim, attended the festival. National Award winning film makers
like Bhagirathi, Tapan Biswas, Srijit Mukherji, Kaushik Ganguly along
with other Indian cinema stalwarts met their fans and interacted with
media and fans.
- Creating
a benchmark of showcasing exceptional films from world cinema, the
screened a stellar line-up of official Oscar entries from 26 countries.
These films were the part of global film festivals like Cannes, Venice,
Berlin and Busan.
PIB
IFFI / MD