3 days to go but IFFI competition section still under wraps

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has been touting IFFI as an event on a par with prestigious international festivals like Cannes, Venice and Berlin.

While global festivals make all details of films, jury members and even screening schedules public at least 15-30 days before the events kick off, this has not been the case of IFFI in the past few editions.

Apart from the films in the 'Indian Panorama' section, and the Indian Premieres section curated by the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG), no information has been made public on the films to be screened at what is India's biggest and oldest film festival.

Directorate of Film Festival's (DFF) Joint Director Shankar Mohan said the list of films has been finalised and given to Press Information Bureau (PIB) for publicity.

But PIB officials at their camp office here claimed that they are yet to receive the list.
The ten-day-long IFFI 2010 kick starts here on November 22. Legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra will inaugurate the festival in presence of Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Director of film festival S M Khan had recently stated that a 20-member selection jury had watched 450 movies and made a shortlist for screening at IFFI.

He had said that 18 films from different countries including three Indian movies will be vying for coveted awards. The director, however, had refused to name the movies.
Khan had denied the selection procedure was delayed and said all the directors were informed about their movies selected.

The official websites of IFFI, PIB or DFF have also not uploaded the information about the movies in the competition section.