IFFI to be grand event, expect film industry to participate in large number: I&B Secretary Jaju

Mumbai: Information and Broadcasting Ministry Secretary Sanjay Jaju on Tuesday said the upcoming International Film Festival of India (IFFI) will be a grand spectacle, featuring an impressive lineup of movies and attract significant participation from the film industry.

The film gala, which will run from November 20 to 28 in Panaji, Goa, will have "Swatantrya Veer Savarkar" as the opening movie of the Indian Panorama section at the 55th edition of the festival.

Twenty-five feature films -- five mainstream movies and 20 non-feature -- will be showcased under the Indian Panorama section.

"This time the festival is being conducted on a very big scale, and we hope the industry will participate in large numbers. Shekhar Kapur ji is the festival director, good films are being curated, and all the sections like Panorama and Competition have good line-ups of films. Besides, trailers, teasers and posters of films will be launched, there will be the premiere of films held as well," Jaju told reporters here at a press meet.

"There will be masterclasses too. Film Bazaar is being conducted on a big scale. We discussed things with Subhash Ghai and other producers, we are hopeful that IFFI this year will be a grand event," he said.

IFFI 2024 will see introduction of several new sections aimed at nurturing young talent, he said.

"We want to make qualitative and quantitative better. IFFI this time is focusing on youth, so there are a lot of sections being introduced like, 'Creative Minds of Tomorrow' where 100 filmmakers from all over the country will be part of the competition... In addition to this, we've a section for debut filmmakers," he added.

Jaju also revealed plans for the launch of Prasar Bharati's OTT channel at the festival, designed to provide independent filmmakers a space to showcase and monetise their content.

"The content creator will have the Intellectual Property (IP) (rights), and we will try the revenue-sharing model. It is not just normal content being available on it, there will be live channels running on it, we are creating a marketplace, and we will show archival content of the country. We've about 2,000 titles in our archives and we will bring that out," he said.

Jaju said that in the photo division, there will be shown about 1-2 crore heritage photos.

"So, OTT doesn't mean we will only show series, but we will bring other archival content. We are hopeful that our subscription will increase, accordingly the popularity will rise, so we'll have a tool to take our content globally," he said.

The IAS officer announced that IFFI 2024 will commemorate the centenary celebrations of four legendary figures in Indian cinema -- Raj Kapoor, Mohammed Rafi, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, and Tapan Sinha.

"All these cine makers are completing their 100 years this year, so as part of IFFI we've started this tradition that we will be celebrating cine makers," he said.