The opening ceremony of the 54th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) took place in one of India’s biggest indoor stadiums, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Goa on 20th November with an attendance of two thousand in the audience. It had film stars like Sunny Deol, Pankaj Tripathy, Vijay Sethupathi, and Nusratt Bharucha as guests while the locals enjoyed the performances of Madhuri Dixit and Shahid Kapoor. But one does wish that there could have been Indian folk dances from our diverse ethnicity to lure the foreign delegates that were present from over 70 countries. In his speech, Minister Anurag Thakur stated that the Prime Minister’s vision is to strengthen India’s position in all sectors globally including cinema, arts and culture. He also announced a whooping 40% subsidy for foreign investors in the field of cinema.
The IFFI opening film was the British film “Catching Dust”. This Texan desert suspense drama has four intriguing characters and the film focuses on their dynamics which makes it a compelling watch. Meanwhile, the Malayalam feature film “Aattam” opened the Indian Panorama. But what caught everyone’s eye was the Tamil film “Blue Sunshine”, scripted, directed and acted by Samyukta for its interesting concept. It’s about a young man in a traditional Tamil family transitioning to a woman and how she is then treated by the family, society and at workplace. It’s a commendable effort by Samyukta who doesn’t have formal training in cinema to tell her own story which is sure to inspire the young storytellers of our country.
IFFI also screened seven restored classics with the best being the Hungarian cult film, “Twilight” by Gyorgy Feher who is a Bela Tarr protégé. It’s based on a 1955 novella by Swiss author Friedrich Durrenmatt which was also adapted by Sean Penn into a film “The Pledge”, co-written by Polish writer director Jerzy Skolimowski. Tarr’s cinematographer, Miklos Gurban shot the film in black and white with a noir style and oversaw the restoration. The story is not clearly said but if one immerses in the film then one can relish it. And this is what makes it one of the few great films of the festival.
There were Cannes award-winning gems as well like Jonathan Glazer’s “Zone of Interest”, Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall”, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses” in the world cinema category. Turkish maestro Nuri Ceylan also revealed, “I love to make cinema on human relations and that’s my style of filmmaking.”
In the IFFI main competition section, Iranian filmmaker, Abbas Amini’s film “Endless Borders” wowed the audience and rightly got the Golden Peacock award along with the Best Actor’s award for Pouria Rahimi who effectively essayed the role of a exiled school teacher posted in a remote area of Iran bordering Afghanistan. While waiting for his jailed wife to leave the oppressive rule of the country, he encounters Afghan Hazara refugees fleeing the Taliban regime. All of them are dreaming of respite by crossing the borders of Afghanistan to Iran to Turkey and so on, with the hope of entering the West. The jury chairman, Shekhar Kapur added, “India has unparalleled content and technology that enriches global cinema.”
Meanwhile, ten films competed for the ICFT UNESCO award, with VP Serge Michel saying, “We seek to uphold the timeless ideals of Mahatma Gandhi.” In this context, Singaporean filmmaker, Anthony Chen’s film “Drift” was the winner of this category.
Next, “Odh” by Akhil Lotilkar bagged the Best Film award at the 75 Creative Minds of Tomorrow and it was a great initiative by the Ministry to encourage young film students to tell their stories.
There was also an award introduced for OTT shows chaired by popular director, Rajkumar Hirani with the award going to Amazon Prime’s “Panchayat”.
Elsewhere, Philippine auteur Brillante Mendoza held a masterclass. Among our Indian talents, Nawazuddin Siddiqi, Vidya Balan and Rani Mukherjee had masterclasses with Nawazuddin expressing his desire to play the spiritual guru, Osho in a film.
The highlight of the festival was Hollywood actor Michael Douglas getting the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award. He was present with his Oscar-winning actress wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones and his young son, Dylan. He recounted how as a film student he had studied Satyajit Ray films and it was a great honour to receive the award. He also said that he is willing to act in a small role in a good film rather than a big role in a bad movie, something that Indian actors should also keep in mind. Zeta-Jones also recounted how she enjoyed the Indian dance at her friend, Shailendra Singh’s house and joined the dancers but she emphasized that she loved Ritesh Batra’s “Lunchbox”. After all, cinema transcends language when we speak a universal emotion.
The closing film, “Featherweight” by Robert Kolodny was a sports biopic about Willie Pep but done in an innovative style mixing real footage with staged sequences. It is produced by Leonardo Dicaprio’s production house along with Indian studio, Golden Ratio Films.
The IFFI closing ceremony hostess Mandira Bedi turned the event into a local Bollywood extravaganza, asking actors to dance or spout popular dialogues which was elegantly done by Kanadda director and actor Rishab Shetty. However, with IFFI being an international film festival, which represents India on a global scale, the closing ceremony would have fared better as a serious and cultural affair.
It is also surprising that the National Anthem was not played during any of the screenings. An unfortunate decision as this tradition is followed at Mumbai’s MAMI Film Festival or any regular cinema for that matter.
Then there was the downer due to the local security barring delegates, invitees and film personalities from entering screenings which had empty seats. It is not a new regulation of allowing delegates who haven’t booked online if there are empty seats in the theatre, something that even huge festivals like Cannes and Berlinale follow. Hope the Entertainment Society Goa and the rest of the organisers of IFFI rectify this next year.
But it is worth noting the ever-growing Film Bazaar organised by NFDC which was attended by almost 60 foreign festival selectors and producers. The session on pitching films to lesser-known OTTs was the best. Many states had stalls to promote their locations with some new faces like Jammu and Kashmir and South Africa. Along with these, many successful events were organised by the efficient team of DFF, headed by Tanu Rai and NFDC, headed by Prithul Kumar. The festival has been growing and developing to astound new heights every year and this edition is no different.
