IFFI 2016 came to a close in Goa on Monday with Reza Mirkarimi’s film Daughter winning the Golden Peacock award and winning the accolades as the best film at one of Asia’s oldest film festivals.
Turkish filmmaker duo of Soner Caner and Baris Kaya won the best director award for their film Rauf, which was accompanied by a silver peacock prize, while the festival’s best actor award in the male and female category were won by Iranian actor Farhad Aslani for his role of a father in the film Daughter and Elina Vasca for her performance in the latvian film ‘Mellow Mud’ respectively.
South Korean director lee Joon-ik won the special jury award for his period drama film The Throne, while Argentina-Chile co-production Rara directed by Pepa San Martin’s won the Centenary award for best debut feature film.
The special jury award was won by South Korean director lee Joon-ik for the film The Throne. The award comes with a special citation, a silver peacock and a cash prize of `15 lakh.
A special prize introduced at this year’s 47th edition of the International Film Festival of India, the ICFT-Unesco Gandhi medal was won by Turkish film ‘Cold of Kalandar’, which was directed by Mustafa Kara.
Speaking on the occasion, union minister of state for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said that while cinema is big business and there was a paucity cinema hall and multiplex screens in the country, the central government was doing its best to digitise India, which would enable billions of Indians to use their mobile phones as the “next big screens” for entertainment and infotainment.
“The next big screens are going to be the screens in your hand. And the government doing its level best to try and digitalise the entire country so that a billion people will be able to watch what you make for the entertainment and infotainment, sitting in their houses or standing in their fields, be it young or old, will all be able to enjoy and appreciate what you make,” Rathore said at the closing ceremony of the festival which was held at the Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee stadium located on the outskirts of Panaji.
“There is a huge convergence and the government is committed to make that convergence as soon as possible and efficient as possible,” Rathore said.
The minister said that the film business in India was expected to grow to Rs. 23,000 crore in 2019 from the Rs. 14000 business which was conducted by the Indian film industry in 2015.
Over 300 films from nearly 90 countries were screened at the Goa event, which was inaugurated on November 20 at the hands of Ramesh Sippy.
legendary Polish filmmaker, the late Andrzej Wajda’s film ‘After-Image’ was the opening film at IFFI 2016, while South Korean Kim Jee Woon’s ‘Age of Shadows’, which is also the country’s official entry for the Oscar awards, was the event’s closing film.
The International Competition Section of IFFI this year, featured top world films crafted this year, namely ‘According to Her’, ‘Daughter’, ‘House of Others’, ‘I, Olga Hepnarova’, ‘Mellow Mud’, ‘Nelly’, ‘Personal Affairs’, ‘Rauf’, ‘Scarred Hearts’, ‘The last Family’, ‘The long Night of Francisco Sanctis’, ‘The Throne’, ‘The Student’, ‘Ishti’ and ‘Sahad Paather Gappo’, the last two being the Indian films in competition.
The IFFI 2016’s Indian Panorama section opened with the Sanskrit film ‘Ishti’, and featured 21 other feature films.
In a bid to promote cinema among the non-delegate enthusiasts IFFI organisers conducted several screenings of block buster films like Sairaat, Bajirao Mastani, Sholay, etc on Goa’s famous beaches.