Panaji (Goa) [India], November 19 : The International Film Festival of India (IFFI) is back with its 54th edition in Goa. The 9-day gala will kickstart with a star-studded ceremony at the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium on November 20th.
The opening ceremony will be a treat for Bollywood lovers as 'Dhak Dhak' girl Madhuri Dixit Nene and nation's heartthrob Shahid Kapoor are going to perform in front of the live audience.
Celebrities Shriya Saran, Shreya Ghoshal, Nushrratt Bharuccha and Sukhwinder Singh will also add "chaar chaand" to the first day of the festival with their performances.
The guest list for the event also includes Vijay Sethupathi, Sara Ali Khan, Pankaj Tripathi, Sunny Deol, Karan Johar, Shantanu Moitra, Shreya Ghoshal and Sukhwinder Singh, among others.
According to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting press note, Catching Dust, thriller by award-winning British filmmaker Stuart Gatt, has been selected as the opening film of the gala. About Dry Grasses directed by French Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan will be the Mid fest film and The Featherweight directed by Robert Kolodny is the closing film for 54th IFFI.
Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani will serve as the head of the five-member jury for the best web series (OTT) award at the festival. Divya Dutta, Prosenjit Chatterjee, and filmmakers Krishna DK and Utpal Borpujari are part of the jury panel for the inaugural category.
A total of 32 entries across 10 languages from 15 OTT platforms have been selected for the inaugural best web series award.
Speaking about the newly introduced OTT awards, Anurag Thakur said that since the COVID-19 pandemic, the OTT industry has seen a boom in India and original content created in India is employing thousands of people. In response to the dynamic landscape of this sector, growth of which stands at 28 percent annually, the Ministry has introduced this award celebrating the outstanding content creators on OTT platforms.
Renowned Hollywood actor and producer Michael Douglas will be honoured with the prestigious Satyajit Ray Excellence in Film Lifetime Award. He will also address the IFFI Master Class on November 28.
The Indian Panorama is chosen by a jury of notable film personalities from across India, with a total of 12 jury members for feature films and six jury members for non-feature films, led by the respective chairpersons.
The Feature Film Jury, which consists of 12 members, will be chaired by famous director, actor, and producer TS Nagabharana.
The Feature Film Jury chose Anand Ekarshi's film Aattam (Malayalam) as the opening feature film of the Indian Panorama Section. Noted documentary film director Arvind Sinha presides over the six-member Non-Feature Film Jury.
Indian Panorama section will showcase 25 feature films and 20 non-feature films from India. In the non-feature section is 'Andro Dreams' from Manipur.
From a pool of 239 modern Indian non-feature films, a package of 20 has been chosen for screening in the Indian Panorama segment. The collection of short films shows young and veteran filmmakers' ability to capture, examine, entertain, and reflect modern Indian values.
54th IFFI will conclude on November 28.
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