TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Entertainment Society of Goa has urged the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to introduce a special non-competitive section for screening Goan films at the 10-day International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which begins here on November 20.
An official meeting headed by I&B Minister Manish Tiwari will be held in the city, on Wednesday. If the proposal is accepted, for the first time Goan films will be given a special niche at the festival.
“ESG on behalf of the local film fraternity asked the Union Ministry for special screening of the movies produced by them. I will meet him (Tiwari) and put forth this demand,” ESG Chairman Vishnu Surya Wagh told reporters on the sidelines of a briefing at Kala Academy on Monday.
He stated this section will have either movie of Goan origin or about Goa. “Our film industry is crawling…through this initiative, delegates coming from all over the world will know about the films of Goa,” he added.
Only two Goan films ~ Baga Beach and another which is based in a small village of Goa The Coffin Maker ~ have been selected in the Indian Panorama Section of IFFI.
Once the Centre okays the proposal, Wagh said, about eight to nine films can be accommodated in the new section but each of these will have only one screening. The ESG has also opened option for short films and a committee is expected to be constituted shortly.
The chairman added that films should have censor certificate issued after the last IFFI while expressing personal opinion that he does not favour censorship. “It clamps the artistic persona of the professionals in this field,” he said.
