Goa film festival to open on Monday with Chinese film

21 Nov 2009

International Film Festival of India (IFFI-2009) will start in Kala Academy, Panaji, Goa on Monday with the screening of the Chinese historical drama Wheat, a film set in 260 BC when China was mired in a long and bloody war between the Qin and the Zhao.

Waheeda Rehman will be the chief guest at the inaugural ceremony, with well-known actress Asin as special guest lighting the ceremonial lamp of the 11-day festival.

The festival will screen about 300 films across 10 auditoria and 3 preview rooms in the cities of Panaji and Margao in Goa.

The most popular sections in the film programming include competitions for feature films from Asia, Africa, Latin America, cinema of the world, tributes, homages, retrospectives, country focus films, Indian Panorama and specially curated sections.

The "Cinema of the World" section this year will showcase more than 55 films from around 47 countries. A specialized competition for feature films from Asia, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Africa is also being organised.

Two Indian entries, Atanu Ghosh's Bengali film "Angshumaner Chhobi" and Satish Manwar's Marathi film "Gabricha Paus" have been selected in the competition section among 13 other films from Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Kazakhstan, Iran, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, Sri-Lanka, Taiwan and Argentina.