TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The 44th IFFI this year had the much promised glam quotient from international cinema.
Academy Award winning Hollywood actress and chief guest of the festival, Susan Sarandon, lit the ceremonial lamp indicating the inauguration of the festival in the presence of critically acclaimed Iranian Director Majid Majidi, Bollywood actors Waheeda Rehman and Kamal Hassan, I&B Minister Manish Tewari, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and Goa chief secretary B Vijayan.
The comperes of the evening were Suhasini Maniratnam and Rajat Kapoor.
Speaking on the occasion, I&B Secretary Bimal Jhukla said, “We are promoting India as a filming destination and to encourage foreign filmmakers to come to India, we are setting up a single window clearance system.”
Bollywood was amply represented by Rekha, Prem Chopra, Nana Patekar, Rani Mukherjee, Jackie Shroff, R Madhavan, Deepti Naval, Alia Bhatt, Venkatesh, Huma Qureshi, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Asha Bhosle, Manoj Bajpai, Rana Daggubati, Divya Dutta and Ramya Krishna.
Entertaining the audience with a 40-minute cultural programme were Pandit Birju Maharaj, Ustad Nishat Khan and Sashwati Sen along with her troop.
Jury members Goran Paskaljevic, Victor Banerjee, Atiq Rahimi, Claire Deniz and Prasanna Vithanage were felicitated by Bollywood actors on the occasion.
In a precedent, this year renowned Bollywood actress Waheeda Rehman was conferred with the first Centenary Award for Indian Film Personality of the Year 2013. The award has been instituted to commemorate 100 years of Indian Cinema and will be given annually to an outstanding film personality for his or her contribution to Indian cinema.
This year eminent Czech director Jiri Menzel received the Lifetime Achievement Award. His latest work, Don Juans was the opening film of the festival. Both stalwarts received a standing ovation.
The vote of thanks was delivered by Film Federation of India (FFI) president Bijay Khemka. The festival will be on till November 30.
