Organisers rope in corporates to fund IFFI

PANJIM, NOV 17
Big corporates like United Breweries, Qatar Airways, Lalit Suri group of hotels and HDFC Bank have joined hands with International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2010.
Entertainment Society of India (ESG), in a press conference today announced the name of its 16 sponsor partners for the festival, which also includes Kingfisher Airlines, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), Corporation bank and Bright advertising.
ESG is expecting the sponsorship at the tune of Rs 1.5 crores to 2 crores.
“Last year we managed to get the sponsorship of Rs 1.25 crores but this year we aim little higher. It might vary between Rs 1.5-2 crores,” ESG, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Manoj Srivastava told reporters.
Srivastava said that the festival for the year is budgeted at Rs 7.35 crores as against last year’s Rs 6.39 crores. “The attempts are on to run the festival on its own without government funding. Since last year we have managed to reduce our expenditure,” he said replying to a question.
The CEO said that ESG is not looking at these big companies as sponsors but as partners. “We would like to call it as partnership rather than the sponsorship, which will help us to expand our business with different resources in hands,” he stated.
The ten day festival, beginning from November 22, this time won’t be having any hospitality partner for the festival; however it has tied up with Taj group and Cidade Goa, where the delegates will be housed.
United Breweries Group Vice President Govind Tiwari said that the group’s airlines, Kingfisher Airlines, will flow domestic delegates for the festival, while the international delegates will be taken care by the Qatar Airways.
“We are involved with the festival since the day one. At the initial stage there were several hiccups but now everything is going smoothly,” Tiwari said adding that the festival has helped them in branding their airlines.
“Also, we are the market leaders in Goa for breweries so this comes as a part of our social commitment,” he added.
Kingfisher Airlines will also cover IFFI in their in-flight magazines and also advertise the festival in their in-flight Televisions. The Airlines will be also setting lounges at the festival venue, which will be named as Actors lounge, media lounge, Inox lounge and Raj Kapoor lounge.