IFFI to be made self-sustaining without diluting its spirit: CM
By chennaivision at 14 July, 2009, 11:38 am
Panaji, The Goa government, hosting the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) on a permanent basis every year since the year 2004, would not spare any effort at making it self-sustaining while reducing the expenditure on its conduct without diluting the spirit of the film-centric event.
Disclosing this to mediapersons after chairing the governing board meeting of the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG), which is a nodal agency of the government to organise the IFFI, chief minister Digambar Kamat said the government had spent Rs 6.39 crore in its first event held in 2004 under the BJP government headed by Manohar Parrikar.
The expenditure had gone up to Rs 10.30 crore in 2005, the highest of Rs 14.63 crore in 2006, Rs 11.65 crore in 2007 and Rs 11.83 crore in 2008. Efforts were underway to get more sponsors to meet the expenditure to make it a self-sustaining exercise, he said in presence of Chief Executive Officer of the ESG Manoj Srivastava.
The IFFI event includes organising a slew of cultural events across the state under the state Art and Culture Directorate even as the ESG was geared to conduct the festival this year, he said.
The ESG, would forward the MoU to the Directorate of Film Festivals in Delhi for approval in a day or two and finalise the agenda for the edition this year, he said.
As part of effort at spreading culture, the ESG, had decided to conduct three-day “Patriotic Film Festival” every year to induce the patriotic fervour among the youth beginning on August 7, he said.
The authorities had decided to invite veteran film producer Rakesh Mehta of ‘Rang de Basanti’, the inaugural film, and Manoj Kumar for the closing film ‘Upakar’. The other films to be screened included ‘Sikander’, ‘Lagan’ and ‘Lakshya’.
The authorities would involve school students in a 2-line slogan writing contest on “India as my dream”, the first best three entries of which would get Rs 10,000, Rs 7,500 and Rs 5,000 award among the first best 50 selected for the purpose.
It was also decided to conduct an essay writing competition on the “Spirit of Freedom” for the students between the age group of 14 and 17 in any language in collaboration with a media partner, he added.
Meanwhile, the CM today condoled the death of veteran film actor Nilu Phule who, he said, had entertained people not only in the country but throughout the world with his roles in Marathi and Hindi cinema besides dramas.
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