Actors Pankaj Tripathi, Suneil Shetty, Prabhu Deva, Manoj Bajpayee and Ajay Devgn will be felicitated with Special Honours at the 53rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which kicks off in Goa on November 20.
The honours will be given at the inaugural ceremony on Sunday evening, which will be attended by Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur, MoS I&B L Murugan, Goa Governor PS Sreedharan and Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.
There will be a special announcement for the Indian Personality of the Year award, which has been presented to actors Hema Malini, Amitabh Bachchan, Rajinikanth and lyricist Prasoon Joshi in the past.
Besides, short films on 75 years of the Independence will be released. An exhibition showcasing technology and various elements pertaining to cinema and aesthetics were also being organised by Film and Television Institute of India this year. The exhibition highlights what’s new in the arena of entertainment technology.
Austrian film, Alma and Oskar, directed by Dieter Berner, will open this year’s edition, which has 280 films from 79 countries. The Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement award is being given to Spanish film director Carlos Saura. Also part of the line-up is an eight-film retrospective dedicated to Saura.
France is the ‘Spotlight’ country this year, with eight of its films to be screened under the Country Focus package. Three films featuring Dadasaheb Phalke-awardee Asha Parekh – Teesri Manzil, Do Badan and Kati Patang – will be screened, while the festival closes with on November 28 with Krzysztof Zanussi’s film Perfect Number.
To promote films from the North East, five feature and five non-feature films will mark the golden jubilee of Manipuri cinema.
