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RE: Goan Voices' on "And Bollywood's vote goes to Goa" of Nov 4 1. Cannes and Venice are said to be tourist destinations whose film festivals are "yet another" attraction. Only few know that Cannes took decades to establish itself as an international film festival with enlightened French government involvement whereas Goa seems to be under the delusion that it has already arrived, festival-wise, and could concentrate on road upgrades (including for the coincident Exposition) instead of film infrastructure. Expecting to have an "instant hit" on its hands may be a serious mistake! 2. New Delhi is notorious for being a festival venue that is "government oriented". Goa may not have been able to shake off this strangle hold so far. Film aspects have been the least of the Goa govt's priorities as these are accepted as being in Delhi's bailiwick. The heritage building of which much has been made recently is partly restored as the IFFI office to which the Delhi directorate folks can retire for an occasional Goan holiday! So far, reportedly, all the money has been spent out of Goa's pocket with not a single cent from the Centre which initially was touted as being good for as much as Rs 500 cr! 3. It is not clear as to whose brainwave the choice of IFFI actually was -- whether Shyam Benegal's as per the current write-up, the ex-I&B Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad (or his predecessor Sushma Swaraj) or even CM Parrikar. Some grist here for the film historian's mills. 4. So its confirmed. The agreement is only for running IFFI in Goa this year. Reportedly the decision about next year/"permanent venue" will be made based on feedback from the international delegates. These will be virtually a handful and we can be sure that no stone will be left unturned to wine and dine them over to Goa's side. Who knows what the quality of the festival programming itself will be and how the infrastructure holds up. Some talk of an Asian theme. Others talk of an Italian flavour etc. The agitators who naturally see an unnecessarily high profile IFFI as a golden opportunity to arm twist the government will also have to be pacified and neutralised in time. 5. For next year's IFFI Goa, be prepared for the freshly paved roads to be dug up all over again to lay underground electric cables (to solve those pesky power outage problems that chronically afflict the State) or for some other inane reason (including re-work of this year's crash jobs [no pun intended!] though no excuse seems needed to mess up a newly surfaced road and potholes are always there to oblige anyway).
