PIFF kicks off,Kalmadi missing from scene

The festival that will go on till January 13 saw veteran actors Shashikala and Saira Banu being felicitated with lifetime achievement awards,while producer-director Subhash Ghai received the special award. The Sachin Dev Burman International Award for Creative Music and Sound was given to music director Khayyam for his contribution to the Hindi film industry. The retrospective section will feature films by Greek director Michael Cacoyannis,Canadian producer Rock Demers and by actor-director Kamal Hassan. Patel also said that this year around in addition to the World and Global cinema sections the festival will also have a Marathi cinema section that will showcase the changing face of Marathi cinema since its formative years. Speaking about the festival producer-director Subhash Ghai said,“The festival has grown by leaps and bounds and it is a great thing for the people of Pune because it will give them more exposure to world films and quality cinema.”

Patel also said,“ The two major focuses this year of the festival will be the celebration of the 150 th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore as well as celebrating 50 years of making historicals.” Adding more he said that the main focus about historical films is the fact that over the last 50 years not a lot of films have been made on historical themes given the fact that India has a rich cultural and historic tradition. “The focus will be on the fact that there are so many historic events that could become films,the reasons behind their limited popularity,the budgets involved in making them and issues like that. Mughal-e-Azam which is touted to be one of the most successful periodic films will also be screened,” he added.

The closing ceremony will be held at the Ganesh Kala Krida Mandir. A total of six venues that include,E-Square,Inox,City Pride-Kothrud,Fame-Fatimanagar,NFAI,and Ganesh Kala Krida Manch will show the films.