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For the first time, IFFI showcased a number of entertaining events like the Goa Music Day (held on the eve of the closing ceremony, the event celebrated the songs, melody and the spirit of exuberance of the Goan people), Namaste India music concert, and street animation, which added flavour to the spirit of festivity. In fact, the Goa Music Day brought forth the best of Goan music, which wafted through every nook and corner of Goa, endorsing the essential spirit of exuberance of Goans. They performed at 101 locations across Goa, culminating in a grand concert at Caranzalem, where many celebrity Indian and international artistes shared the stage. To sum it up, whether Goa is emerging as the Cannes of India remains yet to be seen, but it is true that with its scenic beauty and atmosphere of revelry, it is, indeed, an exciting venue for international film festivals. Rightly, the government has awarded it the status of being the permanent venue for IFFI. Now Goa is not only about sun, sand, surf and Portuguese culture…it also about films.
Evergreen Bollywood hero Dev Anand was the Chief Guest for the film festival, and the southern action star Chiranjeevi was the guest of honour at the inauguration ceremony of the 36th IFFI. Afzal Amanullah was the festival’s Director, and the immaculately maintained Inox multiplex was the official venue for the screening of films. The film festival opened with the screening of Brazilian film
Olga, directed by Jayme Monjardim, whose heroine became the toast of the town.
This year, the festival’s competition section widened its ambit. It had entries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America; earlier the competition was restricted to Asia. There were 16 entries in the competitive section, which included two Indian films—Nagesh Kukunoor’s
Iqbal (Hindi) and Kamal’s Perumazhakkalam (Malayalam). All total, the 36th IIFI screened 182 films from 35 countries. The Golden Peacock, awarded for ‘best film’, went to Iranian film
Iron Island. The film, directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, won the coveted award for “originality, deep thoughtful narration, powerful cinematic expression and great creative strength.” The award, besides honour, also carried a cash prize of Rs. ten lakh. The film paints a touching story of a motley group of homeless adults and children, and their lives in an abandoned ship, under the continual scrutiny of an authoritative, self-appointed captain. It is a film embodying great sensitivity.
Vera Eugina Fogwill and Martin Desalvo won the Silver Peacock for their Argentinean film
Kept & Dreamless. This award for the Most Promising Director carried a cash prize of Rs. five lakh.
Kept & Dreamless deals with the relationship between an irresponsible junkie mother and her ten-year-old daughter, and the film explores the feminine universe with uncommon insight along with strands of humour. Tom Hooper won the Special Jury Award for directing the South African film
Red Dust. In his maiden directorial venture, he shows his mettle with the creative use of language and grammar of cinema, and great understanding of the issue of human rights. He too was honoured with a Silver Peacock and a cash prize of Rs five lakh. Red Dust is a courtroom drama exploring the effects of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission appointed by President Nelson Mandela after the lifting of apartheid.
The five-member jury was headed by Chilean filmmaker Miguel Littin; other members included Alain Corneau (France), Saeed Mirza (India), Faramarz Gharibian (Iran), and Sabine Derflinger (Austria). Cinema of the World section had entries from 31 countries.
Other sections of the film festival were Indian Panorama and retrospectives from Italy, Poland, Portugal, Germany, Canada, Egypt, Taiwan, and Australia. Late film producer-turned-director Ismail Merchant and late actors Sunil Dutt and Gemini Ganesan were paid special tributes, and a retrospective of veteran Bollywood director Hrishikesh Mukherjee was also screened; Mukherjee’s masterpiece
Anand was well appreciated by the audience and critics alike. This classic movie reaffirmed the fact that despite the advance of technical wizardy, people can still like a well-told story in simple cinematic format.
The film festival was also unique in the sense that it served as a platform for the all India premiere of some promising Indian films of today such as
Apaharan (directed by Prakash Jha), Blue Umbrella (directed by Vishal Bhardwaj),
Dubai Return (with this film Aditya Bhattacharya returned to film direction after a seventeen year ‘post-Raakh’ sabbatical),
Parzania (directed by Rahul Dholakia), and Deewana Huye Paagal (directed by Vikram Bhatt).
Another attraction at the 36th IFFI was the Film Bazaar, which was set up at the venue of IFFI 2005 by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the National Film Development Corporation, with active support from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, and the Government of Goa. It was inaugurated on 25 November 2005 by Indian Union Urban Development and Culture Minister Jaipal Reddy at the Kala Academy. “Our endeavour is to make the Film Bazaar a meeting ground for trading activities for Indian cinema,” asserted Afzal Amanullah. He said that the activity at the Film Bazaar 2005 was “encouraging.”
According to noted film producer Bobby Bedi of Bandit Queen and
Mangal Pandey fame, Film Bazaar was positioned as an “ideal platform” where participants at the festival could showcase and promote their products and services, and “explore new business opportunities and partnerships.” He couldn’t have been more correct. However, besides serving as a platform for buying and selling of the distribution rights of movies, and discussion of scripts, ideas, and projects, the Film Bazaar also became the right opportunity for representatives from the Indian film industry to strongly pitch for Goa as the ideal destination for shooting, post-production, and digital filmmaking. India’s strength as a shooting and post-production destination was also highlighted in many discourses in the Film Bazaar.
The Goa Film Festival was not simply about films…or for that matter of films and music. The film shows in the rarefied intellectual atmosphere were also complemented by brainstorming seminars, open forums, and open-air beach screenings and mobile cinemas. The beach cinema in Caranzalem screened Bollywood blockbusters like
Bunty aur Bubli, Sarkar, and Salaam Namaste, among others. The shimmering, azure blue waters of the Arabian Sea and the Bollywood
masti together created a heady concoction, very much like Goa’s famous cashew
feni. With all these added attractions, no wonder Indian actor Mithun Chakraborty, who was the Guest of Honour at the closing ceremony, professed that Goa was the most appropriate destination for IFFI. Festival Director Afzal Amanullah also opined that “IFFI has finally found a permanent home in Goa.”
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