The Hindu : New Delhi News : A lot to look forward to at Goa festival

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Wednesday, Sep 29, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

A lot to look forward to at Goa festival

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 28. It may be a wait of another two months before Goa gets crowned as the permanent venue of the International Film Festival of India, but with the list of films to be screened at the Indian Panorama section of the festival now out, the hits and misses are finally public.

Having beaten a number of commercial hits to the Oscar race, this year's National Award-winning "Shwaas'' will also be the country's official nomination for the Asian Competition Section at IFFI-2004 along with Anjan Dutt's "Bow Barracks Forever''.

Selected by a jury headed by eminent film-maker Shaji N. Karun, 21 films have made it to the feature film section, while 19 non-feature films have been recommended for inclusion in the Indian Panorama segment. In all, 117 feature films and 95 non-feature films competed for a place in the Panorama list.

Opening this year's Panorama segment will be Anup Kurien's Malayalam film "Mansarovar'', with Bisu C.Kannan's "Chhayam'', Shyamaprasad's "Akale'', Rajiv Vijay Raghavan's "Maargam'' and Ligy J Pullapally's "Sancharam'' being some of the other films selected from this State. English is clearly gaining ground as the medium of language for film-makers here, and Madhu Ambat's "An Ode To Lost Love'' and Anjan Dutt's "Bow Barracks Forever'' will add to the variety of this year's Panorama.

It may have been part of last year's IFFI, but Rituparno Ghosh's "Chokher Bali'' will make a comeback to the festival under this section this year as will Vishal Bharadwaj's "Maqbool''.

Also seen as part of this year's festival will be Sudhir Mishra's "Chameli'' and "Hazaaron Khwahishen'' , Vinod Ganatra's "Heda Hoda'', Anjan Das's "Iti Srikanta'', Sanjib Sabhapandit's Assamese film "Juye Poora Xoon'', Sashi Kumar's "Kaya Taran'', Sekhar Das's "Mahul Banir Sereng'' and Joseph Pulinthanath's "Mathia''.

His second attempt at film-making may not have met with the kind of success that he wanted, but those who missed out on M.F.Husain's "Meenaxi: Tale Of 3 Cities'' can catch up with the film here. Also screened as part of the Panorama will be Ramadas Naidu's "Pravaaha''.

In the non-feature film category, Jasmine Kaur's "Saanjh'' will be the opening film. The other films to be screened at the festival will include Sudhakar Reddy's "Ek Aakash'', Dhanonjoy Mandal's "A Journey With Kakmaras'', Arun Khopkar's "Shantiniketan -- A Flashback'', Jyoti Prasad Das's "The Green Warriors -- Apatanis'' and Suja's "An Encounter With A Life Living''.

Also seen at this segment this year will be Prabhu Radhakrishnan's L.L.Chandru, Dhiraj Meshram's "Oadh'', Budhadeb Dasgupta's "Rabin'', Sohini Dasgupta's "I Couldn't Be Your Son, Mom'', Bikram Singh's "Passing On'', Kaevan Umrigar's "Invisible Parsis'' and Sanjivan Lal's "Is God Deaf''.

But that's not all, for lovers of documentary, also on show will be Ani Thomas's "Once Upon A Time'', Satyajit Bhatkal's "Chale Chalo -- The Lunacy Of Film-Making'', Vibhu Puri's "Chauras Chand'', K.R.Manoj's "Agni'', Avira Rebecca's "An Unfinished Movie'' and Ningthouja Lancha's "Nongdi Tarak-Khidare''.

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