A four-day ‘International Film Festival’ will be organised at Khajuraho. Organised by Department of culture, Madhya Pradesh in association with Tourism Department, public relation and Pryas Production of Raja Bundela, the fest will kick start on April 25 and will continue till April 28.
Talking to mediapersons on Thursday, principle secretary of culture, Manoj Shrivastava said, “We are organising film festival for the first time at Khajuraho and it will be organised every year like Khajuraho festival. As many as we got 550 entries of films but 50 feature films are selected for screening in this festival by Asian Film Federation. Apart from India, some documentary, feature films and short films of 16 countries including America, Germany, Portugal, France, Iran, England, Italy, Brazil, Russia, China and Spain will be also screened.”
Shrivastava further added, “Well-known film makers, directors, actors and producers including Shatrudhan Sinha, Chandra Prakash Dwivedi, Anupam Kher, Prakash Jha, Shekhar Kapoor, Kiran Shantaram, Govid Nihlani, Boni Kapoor, Deepti Nawal, Aashutosh Rana, Rajive Verma, Saurabh Shukla and others will also be present in this festival. Renowned film-maker Manmohan Shetty and Ramesh Sippi will be felicitated on inauguration day for their remarkable contribution in cinema. A half an hour performance, based on the 100 years of cinema and a movie ‘Alex’ would be screened on inauguration day.”
“The movies would be screened in Shilgrap, Chandela, Usha Bundela, Redicine and Ramada from 10 am to 1 pm and in evening, 9 pm to 12 pm. Besides, discussion sessions, on issues related to cinema will also be held,” Shrivastava added. “The aim of this festival is to make Madhya Pradesh as film hub rather than tourist spot and to provide a platform city-based actor, director and producer. Besides national and international movies, some short movies or documentaries on Madhya Pradesh would also be screened. In fact we prepared a special gallery for State artists. We are trying to prepare market for cinema here so that the artistes will not have to go other city for film shooting in future,” added actor and director Raja Bundela.
Informing about film city in State, Shrivastava said, “CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan has announced 400 acre land to make film city earlier, but we have no good entrepreneurs and market for this project yet. Still Madhya Pradesh is not strong for sub national cinema,” he added.