NEW DELHI: Goa, the permanent venue of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) since its 35th edition in 2004, has come under challenge from a man handling the show for the Goa government till 2012.
Manoj Srivastava, a former deputy director in the directorate of film festivals in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, wants to free the film festival from the government’s clutches and restore it back to Delhi, handled by those involved in the film industry.
He has set up Diorama International Film Festival & Market, calling it the Mahakumbh of Cinema, as a direct challenge to IFFI, though he set the dates of the first film festival to be held in Delhi such that it does not clash with the IFFI. While the IFFI is to be held in Goa from November 20 to 28, Diorama is listed almost a month later from December 17 to 23.
The word ‘Diorama’ originated in 1823 as a type of picture-viewing device, picked up from Greek to become a French word. The term Diorama in cinema refers to watching a range of cinema through a perspective
The Delhi-based Srivastava says he wants to re-establish the importance of Delhi that was lost due to shifting of IFFI to Goa, though he was party to moving the festival to Goa as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Entertainment Society of Goa set up by the state government.
His move to wean away the film festivals is surprising as it was he who established Goa as a film destination by launching the concept of “single window clearance” system for film shoots that helped many big films like Chennai express, Singham, Golmaal, Robot and All is Well shot in Goa.
He has to his credit direction of over 200 films, including award-winning “Hum Panchhi ek Daal Ke,” besides working with Doordarshan as a producer. His experience in organising the film festivals also stems from being a founder-member of the Extravagant India Film Festival, Paris, and helping the Jagran film festival grow in shape and size in 16 Indian cities in the past five years.
Describing the Diorama International Film Festival (DIFF) as the largest entertainment event in the Indian capital supported by the Indian Film Institute (IFI) run by the film professionals, Manoj says the first ever Diorama festival takes off from where other festivals have given up, combining a never-before exposure of multi-genre world cinema with real quality entertainment.
He says the festival seek to focus only on the word “connect” with the festival delegates across art, commerce and science of cinema. He claims to have already received some 3,000 entries for the first festival and promises to show 130 films from 50 countries during the week-long festival.
