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Salman Khan

IFFI concludes amidst organisational glitches
05th Dec 2006 09.00 IST
By Agencies

As the curtains come down on the 37th International Film Festival of India in Panaji on Sunday, the event will be remembered for organisational glitches, allegations of a Bollywood bias and, of course, some good cinema.

The first few days of the 10-day festival saw some hectic activity with big time Bollywood stars like Salman Khan , Priyanka Chopra and Anil Kapoor putting in appearances, which led to protests from regional filmmakers that they were being ignored.

Filmmaker T Chandran expressed these sentiments clearly when he stormed out of his press conference while others like Aditi Deshpande, Chitra Palekar and Nandita Das echoed his feelings that the IFFI had acquired a "Bollywood bias" and had ignored lesser known regional cinema.

"This is the only platform that regional films, which cannot compete with Bollywood, have to showcase their talent. And if the big filmmakers come and hijack the festival, it will not do," said Palekar.

However, the organisers denied the allegations, saying there was no such bias, and that all Indian films were equally represented. But the filmmakers were dissatisfied and continued to voice their protest throughout the festival.

To add to the woes of the Entertainment Society of Goa, the main agency for the festival, delegates cried foul at the paucity of seats at screening venues.

For only 2100 seats, almost 6,700 passes were issued, leading to impromptu protests outside the venues by delegates, who could not watch their favourite films.

This glitch also led to doubts being raised over whether Goa was the right venue to host the festival, but Chief Minister Pratapsinh Rane struck a defiant note on the penultimate day of the festival, saying his state would host the festival next year "come what may".

Besides these sidelights, what was supposed to be the main focus of the festival -- cinema -- earned praise from delegates with movies like ‘Volver’, the opening film, and Israel's ‘Three Mothers’ gaining accolades.

Indian films like ‘The Glass House’ (Marathi) and ‘Hope And A Little Sugar’ were also well received.

Long and serpentine queues could be seen not only at screenings of blockbusters like Krrish and Lage Raho Munnabhai but also for lesser-known films from countries like Iran and China.

As jury chairman Rolf De Heer put it, "Ultimately, IFFI is about good cinema and it is a good sign that there are long queues to watch it. I would rather have the festival in a vibrant place with a film culture and go through some organisational problems than have it in a sterile environment where all infrastructure is present."

The festival concludes with the presentation of awards and the screening of Brad Pitt's film ‘Babel’.

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