PANAJI: In the face of continued grievances and protests from regional film industry representatives that they are "not being recognised at all" and that "nobody welcomes them" at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), the Goa Government on Tuesday promised to correct the shortcomings of the festival and improve its organisation.

Since the first IFFI in Goa three years ago, the complaint has been that the IFFI is over-obsessed with Bollywood. This year too, the dominance of the IFFI festival by Bollywood stars, filmmakers and others has ruffled the feathers of regional film industry representatives from different parts of the country.

Goa Chief Secretary J.P. Singh said, "Frankly speaking, this year we have gone out of our way to go across the country to interact with regional film industry representatives and seek their participation. The result is there for people to see. The problem probably lies with the coordination among different agencies involved. We are definitely trying to work on this."

The festival continues to be jointly organised by the Goa Government's nodal agency, the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG), and the Department of Film Festivals (DFF) under the Information & Broadcasting Ministry. Goa is looking to take over the entire organisation of the festival in a couple of years.

But even as it is preparing to do so, the event's many shortcomings, which surfaced in the current edition of the festival, have left the organisers red-faced.

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