Movie buffs, gear up for screenings of rare Indian films

Bringing a collection of rare Indian films to the city, the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), in association with the Directorate of Film Festivals and the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), has organised a festival of selected feature and non-feature films from Indian Panorama Section of International Film Festival of India 2013.

The inaugural function and films are open for the public. Directors of the films selected for the festival will attend the opening, so audiences can interact with them after the screening.

D J Narain, director FTII, said, "FTII was keen to organise this festival, where the audience, along with our students, could see selective Indian movies that are screened worldwide and IFFI's (International Film Festival if India, held in Goa) Panorama section."

He added, "Not every movie lover can go to Goa to attend the fest. Hence we thought of bringing the highly appreciated Panaroma section to the city audience. Pune has some enthusiastic audience for such genres of movies, and bringing them the spectacular movies was a combined effort by FTII and the Indian government. The films we will be screening here are in varied languages such as English, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi etc and cover a wide variety of subjects.

Kamleshwar Mukharjee, Bengali film director whose Meghe Dhaka Tara will open the festival, said, "This is a welcome initiative by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Indian films are seen as highlights in international film festivals. In 2013, only for Panorama section, 211 entries had arrived out of which only a few were screened. We have short-listed films from this section for the audiences of 7-8 cities such as Pune, Shillong, Mysore, Hyderabad and so on."

Mukharjee added, "Pune has a strong film culture and it was on our mind while selecting the places for the festival. It's a treat for all movie lovers."