Special correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji
 
Panaji, Aug 8: Bollywood has assured all the possible support to the Goa government-run Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG) if it intends to take over the International film festival of India (IFFI) management.

"In a recently held meeting between the ESG and the Mumbai Film Industry, the industry expressed whole hearted support to ESG taking over of IFFI by itself," the ESG spokesman said.

IFFI is being held in Goa since 2004 by DFF along with ESG while the state government run agency has already expressed its willingness to hold the festival on its own.

The Mumbai meeting had prominent film personalities such as Manmohan Shetty, Ramesh Sippy, Shekhar Kapur, Sudhir Mishra, Govind Nihalani, Sudhir Nandgaonkar, Raj Tilak, Pahlaj Nihalani, and amongst others expressing their support.

Goa Chief secretary J. P. Singh along with Manoj Srivastava, CEO, ESG, Nikhil Desai, GM, ESG, and others represented the Goa.

The meeting was the first initiative towards a direct interaction with the film industry, the spokesman stated.

"ESG, as the principal agency for organising the IFFI in Goa should try and get greater participation from the film industry, so as to enhance the overall success of the film festival in terms of luring better films and boosting the business component during the festival," he said.

"It was also to project ESG as an important organisation capable of organising the IFFI independently, also as a single window agency for film permissions in Goa and the nodal agency for film commissioning in local language films," he added.

"The industry members felt that the ESG should be allowed to handle main sections of IFFI and the Film Bazaar during the festival. The other sections could be taken over gradually. The Film Bazaar too should have wider awareness and more participation from the film industry professionals, ESG official stated.