IFFI organisers yet to announce films to be screened

PANAJI: Will Japanese author Hirokazu Koreeda’s ‘Shoplifters’, the Palm d’Or winner at Cannes this year be screened at IFFI? Or ‘Roma’, Oscar winner Afonso Cuarón’s semi-autobiographical tale set in Mexico, which even forced Netflix to change its strategy and give it theatrical release? We don’t know. 

Which director or artists are coming from the international film circuit for the IFFI? We don’t know. Which are the films in competition, and which Indian films have been selected to compete? We don’t know.

With barely a week to go for the 49th edition of the International Film Festival of India, the Directorate of Film Festivals (which co-organises the event along with the Entertainment Society of Goa on behalf of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting), seems to be in deep slumber. Till date, barring the opening film (The Aspen Papers), not a single film from world cinema has been declared.  All we have heard are repeated announcements of sections like the sports section which will screen films like ‘Gold’, ‘Mary Kom’ and ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ among others.

But not a single film from world cinema or the festival circuit has been announced yet, and those are the films that delegates look forward to.

Ironically, the last date for registration, which is flexible, is approaching but the organisers have not bothered to announce the programme.  How does an outstation delegate decide whether he wants to come to Goa for IFFI if he has no clue which films are going to be screened?  The Indian Panorama films have been declared, (and a big chunk is from last year’s national awards), we could legitimately ask, when was the last time the Panorama discovered a new Indian film?

This is an International film festival, the most prestigious one in India — perhaps South Asia — with a budget three times that of any other film festival in the country, but it still remains the most disorganised one.

A few days back, a press release stated, “The World Panorama section has 67 films curated for the fest. This includes 4 world premieres, 2 international premieres, 15 Asia premieres and 60 India premieres. This year the “World Panorama” section presents 15 films, which are Oscar submissions from their respective countries.” Those numbers may be of minor interest to statisticians, but to those who actually look forward to IFFI, they have no meaning; the names of the films from world cinema are important and we haven’t heard anything on that front.

Incidentally, the Oscar submission films at IFFI have dropped from twenty-five in 2017 to fifteen this year. There are several promising films doing the rounds but there is no information on the IFFI website or its social media handles.

Will the two misses from the Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI), Barry Jenkin’s crime drama ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ and Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘The Favourite’ be a part of IFFI? We don’t know.

Compare this with the Mumbai or even Kerala film festivals. MAMI declared their complete film lineup as well as the Masterclbad to be conducted by renowned director, Darren Aronofsky, almost a month in advance. Even their schedule was out a week in advance. Kerala Film Festival, which was in doldrums this year due to the floods, and starts a week after IFFI, has already declared a partial line up.

So when will the organizers at IFFI wake up and smell the coffee? We don’t know.