'Wheat' to open IFFI Goa, Waheeda Rehman chief guest at opening
New Delhi | Sunday, Nov 22 2009 IST
 

The International Film Festival of India (IFFI)-2009 will kickstart in Goa from tomorrow with the screening of the Chinese historical drama 'Wheat', a film based of the long and bloody war between the Qin and the Zhao clans in ancient China.

The film is set in 260 BC when China was mired in a long and bloody war between the Qin and the Zhao that could not be settled for the decades. Veteran film actress Waheeda Rehman will be the chief guest at the inaugural ceremony of the 11-day event, to be held in Kala Academy at Panaji.

Actress Asin would be a special guest for lighting the ceremonial lamp while internationally renowned actor Kabir Bedi and artist Divya Dutta would be compeering the opening ceremony, where Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni, Governor of Goa S S Sidhu and state Chief Minister Digambar V Kamat will also be present.

The festival would conclude on December 3 with presentation of Golden and Silver Peacock Awards for Best Film and Best Director, the Special Jury Awards and also the Vasudha and Golden Lamp Tree Awards for the short films. Malayalam star Mammootty will be the chief guest at the closing ceremony. The 11-day extravaganza is divided into various sections which include film programmes, non-film programmes, film bazaar, short film center and cultural activities. The film programming is the core of the festival and screens nearly 300 films during the period of 11 days across 10 Auditoria and three preview rooms in the cities of Panaji and Margao in Goa. The most popular sections in the film programming include competitions for feature films from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Cinema of the World, Tributes, Homages, Retrospectives, Country Focus films, Indian Panorama and specially curated sections. The 'Cinema of the World' section this year will showcase more than 55 films from around 47 countries. A specialised competition for feature films from Asia, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Africa is also being organised. Two Indian entries - Atanu Ghoshs Bengali film 'Angshumaner Chhobi' and Satish Manwars Marathi film 'Gabricha Paus' - have been selected in the 'Competition Section' among 13 other films chosen from Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Kazakhstan, Iran, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Argentina. The competition jury is headed by the noted director from Brazil Joao Batista de Andrade. Other members of the jury include Vic Sarin (Canada), Kenichi Okubu (Tokyo), Sarika (India) and Jean-Michel Frodon (France). Another major attraction under this category is 'Film India Worldwide', a section which will screen films produced by Non Resident Indians in collaboration with foreign filmmakers. The 'Country Focus' section will have screening of films from Croatia, Estonia, Italy, and Poland. Another feature of the festival will be the screening of films by NRI filmmaker Gurinder Chadha, Nonzee Nimibutr, Roland Reber and Manoel de Oliveira under the Foreign Retrospectives'.

Then, there will be a special section to showcase renowned French films. Other sections include 'War and Peace' and 'Digital Section' that will screen a total of 11 films. Besides this, a special tribute would be paid to the much accomplished Brazilian director as well as the head of the Jury Joao Batista de Andrade.

-- (UNI) -- 22DI11.xml

 

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