Goa-ing soon

Sun, sand and cinema. What a heady combination. With the International Film Festival of India 2012 (IFFI 2012) less than a week away, we can hardly contain the excitement.

The opening film this year is Ang Lee’s adaptation of the Yann Martel book, Life of Pi. Shot in Pondicherry and starring Tabu, Irrfan Khan and Adil Hussain, the film will be screened in the presence of the cast and the director.

The ten-day festival, which is being held from November 20^th to 30^th, will conclude with the Golden Peacock being awarded for Best Film.  Last year’s Best director winner, Asghar Farhadi for A Separation, went on to win the Oscars for the Best Foreign Film while the Special Jury Award was awarded to the National award winning film Adaminte Makan Abu by Salim Ahamad.

The festival will also be screening a selection of feature and non-feature Indian films for its Indian Panaroma. Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni’s Deool and Suveeran’s Byari, which shared the Best Feature Film award at the recent 59th National Film Awards for the year 2011, are direct entries to the Panaroma. Rituparno Ghosh’s Chitrangada, Priya Krishnaswami’s Gangoobai and Kamal K.M’s I.D. are amongst the other 18 films being screened from a total of 144 eligible entries.

The closing film is Mira Nair’s ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ starring Kate Hudson and Kiefer Sutherland.