Star News Agency

New Delhi. The versatile, yesteryears beauty Waheeda Rahman and Malayalam star Mammootty will be the Chief Guests at the Opening and Closing ceremonies, respectively, in the upcoming International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2009 beginning at Goa on the 23rd of November 2009. The Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Smt Ambika Soni will be present in the Opening Ceremony. Well known actress Asin would be special guest for lighting the ceremonial lamp. Internationally renowned actor Kabir Bedi and well known artist Divya Dutta would be compeering the Opening Ceremony.

The International Section includes Cinema of World which would have 55 films from 45 countries. Another important component of Foreign Section would be retrospectives of well known Directors namely – Gurinder Chadha, Nonzee Nimabitur, Roland Reber, Joao Batista and Manoel De Olivera. The continent Focus is Latin America this time and Country Focus would be on Croatia; Italy; Poland; Estonia and France. Film India Worldwide is another attraction in the cinema of world section, which will showcase films made by Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in collaboration with foreign filmmakers. There is also a section on Anti War Films. The International Jury comprises of prominent directors/actors/film critics from different part of the world namely: Mr. Joao batista de Andrade – Chairman; Mr. Vic Sarin – Canada; Mr. Ken’ichi Okubo – Japan; Mr. Jean-Michel Frodon – France and Ms. Sarika from India.

In addition, as part of Indian Panorama 26 feature films and 18 non-feature films would be screened. These includes films such as Shob Charitro Kalponik (Bengali), Kaminey (Hindi), Harishchandrachi Factory (Marathi), Ijjodu (Kannada), Pasanga (Tamil), Kutty Srank (Malayalam) and Haat The Weekly Bazaar (Rajasthani). The bouquet of non-feature films includes Bilal (Bengali), What If? (English), Superman of Malegaon (Hindi), Illisa Anagi Mahao (Manipuri) and Kelkkunnundo (Malayalam). The Indian Panorama would open with Paltadcho Manis (Dir: Laxmikant Shetganokar, Konkani) and Dot in for Motion (Dir: Anirban Datta, English).

The Tribute Section would offer homage to 13 film personalities who left us since IFFI 2008 namely - Nabendu Chatterjee, Prakash Mehra, Gulshan Bawra, Leela Naidu, Shakti Samanta, Feroz Khan, Murali, A.K. Lohitadas, Rajan P. Dev, Nilu Phule, Bhaskar Chandavarkar, R. Lakshman and Nagesh. Under NFA Gold, films of Satyajit Ray, V. Shantaram and Debaki Kumar Bose which have won the Best Feature Film awards almost half a century ago would be screened.

The 75 years of Assamese Cinema is being celebrated by a special section featuring five films. Assamese film personalities Jahnu Barua, Gyanada Kakoti, Bidya Rao and Manju Bora would be present on the occasion. For the first time, Malegaon industry of remakes gets an international platform with the screening of two of their films – Yeh Hai Malegaon Ka Superman and Gabbarbhai MBBS.

Under Golden Jubilee Retro section, the sterling contributions of film personalities who have completed 50 years in the industry would be saluted namely Asha Parekh, Sharmila Tagore and Saumitra Chatterjee. Kamal Hasan’s works will be showcased in Feb 2010 in Delhi. Eminent Columnist and film writer Ms. Kishwar Desai would be delivering an audio visual lecture on Adaptation of Literature in Cinema by screening the film Teesri Kasam (Hindi).

The Indian Premier Section will showcase a selection of eight films during the 40th International Film Festival of India, Goa 2009. The films selected include “And Once Again” by Director Shri. Amol Palekar, “Red Alert: The War Within” by Director Shri. Ananth Mahadevan, “God Lives in the Himalayas” by Director Shri. Sanjay Srinivas, “Shahrukh Bola Khoobsoorat Hai” by Director Shri. Makran Deshpande, “Zagor “by Director Sangramsinh Gaikwad, “Vimukthti” by Director Sheshadri.