The 54th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) is set to commence on November 20 at the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Stadium in Goa.
Union minister for information and broadcasting, Anurag Singh Thakur, who will inaugurate the festival. It will start with the screening of the British film ‘Catching Dust’, a movie that narrates the tale of a wife seeking to leave her criminal husband.
At this year’s festival, 19 award-winning films from various international film festivals this year have been assorted in the IFFI Kaleidoscope. The ‘international section’ will have 198 films and the festival will have 13 World Premieres, 18 International Premieres, 62 Asia premieres, and 89 India Premieres.
The ‘Indian Panorama’ section will showcase 25 feature films and 20 non-feature films from India—with the opening films in the feature selection and the non-feature selection to be the Malayalam film ‘Aattam’ and the Manipuri language film ‘Andro Dreams’, respectively.
Renowned filmmaker Shekhar Kapur will be the jury head for the 54th IFFI. Meanwhile, the five-member jury panel will consist of Spanish cinematographer Jose Luis Alcaine and producers Jerome Paillard, Catherine Dussart, and Helen Leake.
Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani will serve as the head of the five-member jury for the best web series (OTT) —a new category in the awards ceremony—at IFFI.
In addition to this, this year Hollywood Actor and Producer, Michael Douglas will be conferred with the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award. He has to his name 2 Oscars, 5 Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and countless other honors.
A star-studded opening ceremony will also witness performances by Shahid Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Nushratt Bharucha, and many other Bollywood celebrities. Hollywood actor Catherine Zeta Jones, along with AR Rahman, Vidya Balan, Karan Johar, and Sara Ali Khan will also be present in the nine-day cinematic event. The closing ceremony on November 28 will feature performances by Ayushmann Khurrana and music composer Amit Trivedi.
