Special Correspondent
Panaji, Nov 22: The 42nd Edition of International Film Festival of India (IFFI) would be flagged off on Wednesday November 23 by Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan, which will showcase handpicked films from across the world.
Contrary to the past, the inaugural would be held in Margao city, 40 km away from here at 1000-seating capacity Ravindra Bhavan complex.
Portuguese film `The Consul of Bordeaux’ will open the ten-day long festival which will be held in Panaji.
Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni and Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat would also be present as the guests for the inaugural function.
Two festival venues – Kala Academy and Inox multiplex, are all set to host several films, including new generation flicks on 2D and 3D format.
Mohan said that the festival will showcase the best of Indian culture and cinema of the world bringing in international sensibilities to the Indian shores.
The festival, this time, will have special section on 3D films and animation apart from premiers, international screenings, homages to stalwarts, industry oriented workshops, masterclasses by industry professionals and much more, Mohan said.
Entertainment Society of Goa’s (ESG) Chief Executive Officer Manoj Srivastava said that apart from the movies, the festival will also see a section on documentaries which will bring in short filmmakers along with a section of student films by young filmmakers from film schools.
The Indian panorama section would be opened by the Malayalam film 'Urumi’ and will showcase eclectic Indian movies.
The retrospective section will have movies of acclaimed film personalies like French film director Luc Besson and acclaimed Australian director Phil Noyce. Besson would be coming to India exclusively to attend the closing ceremony and interact with the Indian audience, the organizers said today.
Mohan said that special spotlight would be on the films from USA like Corman’s World and Chevolution, Polish films like Made in Poland and My Name is Ki, Russian Classics like Uncle Vanya and The Mirror, European movies like She Monkeys and A Quiet Life.
The festival had travelled to Goa from Delhi in the year 2004 and since then the state has been declared as a permanent venue.