Indian city of Chandigarh is planning to have its own international film festival in 2008 when the city would have several multiplexes. The announcement was made by Gen (retd) S.F. Rodrigues, Governor of Panjab and Administrator UT Chandigarh, while inaugurating the first Chandigarh Film Festival at Fun Republic.
“The roadmap of next 20 years developed for Chandigarh has taken film tourism as one of the routes to preserve the heritage, as well as educate, inform, inspire, and promote better understanding amongst people through film appreciation,” Rodrigues said.
“The city shall soon have the multimedia university, a digital post-production facility in the city as well as an academy for acting and direction to be set up with the assistance of noted cine artist Anupam Kher,” he added.
Chandigarh is also working towards single-point contact to facilitate various aspects of film productions.
Delhi Film Society president Gautam Kaul, who also served as police chief in the city, and is a noted film critic, said that films are an assertion of not only a community identity, but also a big attempt to demand a level playing field with the big funs of international diplomacy.
“Since the inception of international film festival in 1952 in the country, which is today the oldest event, the Chandigarh Film Festival is the youngest in the genre which needs to be nurtured for its proper growth,” Kaul said.
Chandigarh Administration home secretary Krisha Mohan, providing a brief overview of the growth of cinema over the years, said that it has always been reflecting the aspirations of the Indians amidst the changing times, from romance, to violence, to anger, to emergence of anti-heros. “The cine tourism through film festival is one of the hundreds of initiatives that the Chandigarh Administration has taken,” he said.
CII Chandigarh Committee chairman Partap Aggarwal said media and entertainment has been accorded the status of an industry and this Rs 222 billion (Rs 22,200 crore) industry has shown great promise for achieving 16 per cent growth through benchmarking with some of the best production techniques and standards available in the international entertainment industry. “India: The Big Picture Brand” is one of the major CII initiatives at the national level to give boost to the industry, he said.
UT Administration director tourism Vivek Atray said that this is just the beginning to the film festival to be organised in the city annually and part of the endeavour to promote the city for cinema tourism too. The current film festival has been organised in collaboration with the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), Embassies of France and Hungary, and the Chandigarh Film Society, which has famous personalities like Yash Chopra and Anupam Kher on the board.
Fun Republic senior vice president J S Jolly informed that the festival opened with the famous award winning comedy, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron. Other films screened today include French films Clean and The Ax, Hungarian film Slap Jack, besides the Hindi movies like Mirch Masala, Salaam Bombay, Hanuman, Rudali and Suraj ka Satvan Ghoda.
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