As the curtains came down on the tenth
edition of the Goa Marathi Film Festival (GMFF) on Sunday with the premiere of
‘Take Care Good Night’, team GMFF bid a teary-eyed goodbye. And these were
tears of happiness, because GMFF lived up to the expectations that it has
created for itself over the years. The festival ticked all the right boxes of
what makes a good film festival – it featured some of the best films from
Marathi cinema, all the A-listers of the industry registered their attendance
and were available for the audience to meet, interact with, and of course, take
selfies with, and was successful in creating an overall filmy vibe and mood.
You did not have to rely on press releases to tell you that a film festival is
on.
The festival opened with National Award
winning film ‘Kulkarni Chaukatla Deshpande’ and followed it with other National
Award winning films such as ‘Ventilator’ and short film, ‘Aaba Aiktaay
Naa?’. In true film festival fashion,
there was a dialogue session with Goan National Award winning director Aditya
Jambhale, where he spoke about his experience of working on ‘Aaba Aiktaay
Naa?’. Other films that were screened included ‘Sanchar’ (Premiere on June 17),
‘Conditions Apply’ (Ati Lagu),
‘Bhwaa’, ‘Cycle’, ‘Dashakriya’, ‘Dr. Rakhmabai’, ‘F.U.’, ‘Kaasav’, ‘Nadi
Vaahate’, ‘Ventilator’, ‘Chi Va Chi Sau Ka’, ‘Oli Ki Suki’, ‘Disha, Muramba’,
‘Half Ticket’, ‘Aaba Eikatay Naa’ (short film), ‘Bobble Head’ (short film),
‘Chaukat’ (short film) and ‘Saavat’ (short film). Most of the auditoriums – at Inox,
Maquinez Palace and Kala Academy – enjoyed a healthy attendance. In what can be
termed as a commendable move, the makers of the festival expanded the reach of
the festival this year by screening movies in theatres in Pernem, Curchorem and
Marcela.
GMFF was incepted ten years ago and for the
last ten years, the festival has been giving the Goan audience a taste of
Marathi cinema that it so craves for. Sanjay Shetye, Festival Director, GMFF
says, “Our motive was to create a festival to celebrate Marathi films that we,
in Goa, do not always get to enjoy. We wanted to create a forum where the
audiences could meet the actors and watch their films in their presence. What
started as a small affair featuring a small number of films, has, over the
years, evolved in both quality and size.”
The festival recognised the contribution of
some of the actors by felicitating them. Sachin Pilgaonkar, one of the
stalwarts of the industry, was bestowed with the Krutadnyata Puraskar. Sai
Tamhankar, an actress who has made her mark with her performances in Hindi and
Marathi films, was awarded The Ever Fresh Face of Marathi Cinema at the
festival. Bollywood actress Divya Dutta made a special appearance at the GMFF
inaugural. Other prominent names from the industry that attended the event
included Nagesh Bhosle, Sonali Kulkarni, Paresh Mokashi, Rajesh Sringarpure,
Ankush Chaudhari, Bhau Kadam, Kushal Badrike, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Anant
Mahadevan, Sumeet Raghavan, Mrinal Kulkarni, Arun Nalawade, Dipti Devi, Varsha
Usgaonkar and many others.