Madhuri Dixit inaugurates the Indian Panorama at IFFI 2011

By Bollywood Hungama News Network -

November 25, 2011 - 7:56 AM IST

Madhuri Dixit inaugurates the Indian Panorama at IFFI 2011

Madhuri Dixit today opened the Indian Panorama at the 42nd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. She was joined in by Jackie Shroff, Shri Uday Kumar Varma, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Govt. of India; Shri SK Shrivastava, Chief Secretary, Government of Goa; Shri Shankar Mohan, Director, IFFI along with a host of other dignitaries like Santosh Sivan (director of Urumi), Makarand Brahme (director of Adwait Sangeet), Padma Bhushan Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra amongst others. In the opening, Madhuri Dixit interacted with the audience and shared her views and experiences on Indian Cinema while the directors of Urumi and Adwait Sangeet shared the ideas behind their films.

Shri Uday Kumar Varma, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said at the opening, "Indian Panorama is truly unique and credit goes to the filmmakers of the country who have managed to bring out the diversity of the country through their cinematic imagination. Capturing the aesthetics of Indian cinema, the Indian Panorama becomes an integral part of the festival. The jury which had to cover a humongous amount of movies before selecting the shortlisted movies needs to be congratulated for its efforts."

Madhuri Dixit inaugurates the Indian Panorama at IFFI 2011

Opening with the Malayalam feature film Urumi directed by Santosh Sivan, the Indian Panorama showcases a package of 24 feature films which have been chosen by a jury headed by renowned filmmaker Sai Paranjpye who chose 23 films out of a total of 118 eligible entries. Santosh Sivan said, "Urumi is based on the ancient martial art sequence of Kalaripayattu and showcases the latent theme of 'History repeating itself'. Giving an opportunity to filmmakers from across the globe, IFFI has been a platform where filmmakers get to showcase their creative skills and get an opportunity to interact with like-minded people."

The non-feature section which was opened with the screening of Adwait Sangeet (Hindi) directed by Makarand Brahme will bring a bouquet of 21 Non-Feature films which includes non-feature films like Madhyoborti Alinde (Bengali) directed by Krishno Kishore Mukhopadhyay, The Doyen of Indian Linguistics (English) directed by Nirmalya Sengupta, Rakshas (Gujarati) directed by Alok Naik, Noong Amadi Yeroom (Manipuri) directed by Romi Meitei and more. Makarand Brahme, the director of Adwait Sangeet said on the opening, "Film Festivals are an integral part of cinema life and I would like to thank Padmashree Rajan and Sajan Mishra who gave me an opportunity to speak on them and showcase music in a new light through the film."

Madhuri Dixit who was the guest of honour said on the opening of the Indian Panorama, "IFFI is a great place to bring in cinematic minds and offer them a platform to interact and bring out the best in cinema. I have myself learnt a lot from these experiences which I have tried to present in my individual works." "Goa in itself is a lovely place to be in and hosting IFFI in here adds to the charm of the place. Offering a relaxed atmosphere for film practitioners to interact amongst themselves, IFFI and Goa has been the best example of creative projection which is for sure to place Indian cinema on the larger global scene."