Special correspondent

Panaji, Nov 14: Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan would be inaugurating the 42nd Edition of International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, a senior official said today.

IFFI Director Shankar Mohan said that Shahrukh Khan would flag off the ten day long event on November 23. Unlike in past, this time, the inauguration of the festival would be held at Ravindra Bhavan auditorium in Margao, 40 kms away from Panaji.

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni will also be present as a guest of Honour for the inaugural function, Mohan said. The ten day long event will be held from November 23 to December 3 in Goa. Mohan said that the guest for the concluding function of the festival is yet to be decided.

IFFI 2011 will be opened with a screening of Portuguese film `The Consul of Bordeaux'.
 Mohan said that the film was selected as it goes well with the theme of the festival 'the whole world is one family'.

The 90-minute film is directed by Manuel Gonzales and the preview committee which went through 500 films decided on this film because of its story, he said.

The film is based on the life of Portuguese consul general Aristides de Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux, France, who helped thousands of Jewish refugees to extricate themselves from France, after Hitler's armed forces invaded Belgium and the Netherlands in May 1940.
The ten-day long festival is expected to have more than 8,000 delegates participating in it, Mohan said.

The festival which was earlier a property of Directorate of Film Festival (DFF) has now been de-linked from it by forming special purpose vehicle - IFFI Directorate under the Union Information and Broadcasting ministry and functions as an independent entity.