Team Café
Goa Marathi Film Festival (GMFF) is back in its eighth year
and looks to be bigger and better. A look at the film schedule and the
itinerary suggests that the annual festival has grown quantitatively as well as
qualitatively with a few fresh elements being added to the festival this year.
Apart from screening an assortment of hand-picked Marathi films, the festival
will see a workshop and budding screenwriters may have the golden opportunity
of seeing their story being made into a Marathi film.
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This year, GMFF will screen a selection of critically
acclaimed films of the season, some of which have even won national awards.
These include ‘Court’, ‘Killa’, ‘Khwada’, ‘Elizabeth Ekadashi’, ‘Dr Prakash
Baba Amte’, ‘Timepass 2’, ‘Dusari Goshta’, ‘Happy Journey’, ‘Sugar, Salt ani Prem’,
‘Sandook’, ‘Jayjaykar’, ‘Siddhant’, ‘Nagrik’, ‘Welcome Zindagi’ and ‘A Paying
Ghost’. While the festival will be inaugurated, followed with the World
Premiere of ‘Highway’ on July 17, the audience can catch their favourite
Marathi film on the big screen on any of the following two days of the
festival.
Apart from ‘Highway’, this year, GMFF will also premiere two
more films – ‘Panhala’ and ‘Nilkanth Master’. While ‘Panhala’, directed by
Prakash Kunte, highlights the lives of two young couples with troubled pasts
whose lives intersect when their cars are involved in an accident at Panhala, a
hill station in Maharashtra, ‘Nilkanth Master’ is a love story set during the
pre-Independence era in Maharashtra, directed by acclaimed film maker Gajendra
Ahire.
The special ‘Kritadnyata Puraskar’ will be awarded to two
senior veteran actors – Ramesh Deo and Seema Deo – as a tribute for their
service in the industry. Ramesh Deo, known for his contribution to Hindi and
Marathi films and theatre, has also produced and directed several feature
films, tele serials and ad films. Considered to be one of the stalwarts of the
Marathi film industry, Deo has been felicitated with various State and National
awards for his commendable work. His wife, Seema Deo too has acted in many
noteworthy Marathi and Hindi movies and has made considerable contribution to
Marathi cinema.
The festival will host a fresh new addition this year – a
workshop on ‘Distributing and Marketing Marathi Movies’ by Girish Wankhede, who
has held several enlightening workshops on his initiative to promote regional
cinema and provide a wide release to Marathi films. The workshop will be held
on July 18 at Kala Academy. Another fresh new addition to GMFF is in the form
of a special initiative, titled, ‘Goa Film Festival Screenwriters Point’. The
contest invites promising screenwriters to send in their original scripts,
where the best script will be selected for production by a reputed production
house in Mumbai.
(Goa Marathi Film Festival will be held from July 17 to 19,
2015 at Kala Academy, Inox and Maquinez Palace, Panjim)
