The Hindu Business Line : Pune international film festival begins on Jan 14

SPREADING joy and happiness is what the Punekars are best at and that is what they would love doing. To ensure that this carries on even in the New Year, Punekars are holding the doors open for the Pune International Film Festival 2005 (PIFF), which would begin on January 14.

The seven-day festival would be inaugurated by Mr S.M. Krishna, Governor of Maharashtra, along with Mr Dominique Girad, Ambassador of France, along with the veteran actor Dev Anand, who was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award last year.

The closing ceremony on January 20 would be attended by the Chief Minister, Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, and the Minister of Culture, Mr Ashok Chauhan. Mr Jabbar Patel, Director-PIFF, Mr Suresh Kalmadi, Chairman-PIFF, and Ms Sabina Sanghvi, Vice-Chairperson, talked about the festival highlights.

Mr Patel noted that the festival for the first time in India would have an element of competitiveness, 13 categories screening 120 films, from across 30 countries. In the `World Competition' segment about 40 films would be shown. Young directors from the French film arena would be presenting their movies and about 30 short films have already made it to the list.

The focus for the third PIFF would be on France and China, though entries from countries such as Germany, Korea, Hungary, Poland, Australia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Iran, Sweden, Canada, Norway and Israel have already made their way to be screened.

To keep up the nostalgia element for the Indian film buffs, seven movies of Gurudutt including Pyaasa would be screened. In the same category, tributes to Marlon Brando, Mehmood, Jayshree Shantaram, Homi Wadi and Laxmikant Berde, the Marathi actor who passed away recently, have been included in the screening list. Movies such as `Shwaas' `Sael' and `Devrai', thrillers and the works of Alfred Hitchcock would also hit the screens once more and a few premiers have been organised.

Keeping up with the scale of the event and to position PIFF on the international map, the Government of Maharashtra would be supporting the event by institutionalising two awards called the `Maharashtra Government Prabhat Awards'. The awards would be in the category Maharashtra Government Prabhat Best International Film with a cash award of $20,000 and the Maharashtra Government Prabhat Best International Director with a cash award of $10,000.

A four-member selection committee comprising Mr Anil Zankar, Mr P.N. Paranjpe, Mr Anand Sukumaran and Mr Samar Nakhate would view about 50 world cinema entries and would shortlist 18 movies to be screened during the festival.

A five-member jury consisting of three national and two international jury members would shortlist the list further. The film winning the Best International Film Award would be the closing one for the festival.

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