The 18th Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) co-organised by the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) announced the ‘PIFF Distinguished Award’ to FTII chairman BP Singh on Friday. Singh is also creator of the popular television crime series, CID.
This announcement by festival director, Jabbar Patel created a flutter at a press conference on Friday.
Explaining his decision, the noted film director said, “Since we are celebrating 60 years of FTII and Maharashtra, we had asked FTII to choose this year’s awardee and they selected his name. Let’s respect their choice, and I stand by my choice as he started a brand new genre of crime serials in the 90s and he is part of FTII. We had asked FTII who are also our co organisers to suggest a name and we acknowledge their choice. It also depends upon who is available during that time and we wholly support their choice.”
Other awardees include National award winning actor Vikram Gokhale who will receive the PIFF Distinguished Award and music director Usha Khanna for the S. D. Burman International Award for Creative Music and Sound. Khanna is known for her contribution to Hindi cinema right from the old melodies in films like ‘Dil Deke Dekho’ (1959).
This year, the inauguration of the festival in the open ground of FTII was shifted at the last minute to Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir in view of the student protests over fee hike, which were called off recently.
{{/usCountry}}This year, the inauguration of the festival in the open ground of FTII was shifted at the last minute to Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir in view of the student protests over fee hike, which were called off recently.
{{/usCountry}}“ It was the committee decision that with the on-going students protests ( which have incidentally stopped) within the campus, we did not want anything hampering the film festival,” said Dr Patel.
Ravi Gupta, trustee of Pune Film Foundation, Samar Nakhate, creative director, Prakash Magdum, director,National Film Archive of India and Hansdhwaj Sonawane, deputy director, Tribal Research and Training Institute were among those present during these announcements.
The film festival organized by Pune Film Foundation and Maharashtra Government will be inaugurated on January 9, 2020, at Balgandharva Rangamandir, Jangli Maharaj Road at 5 pm.
“The leading actors of TV series CID- Shivaji Satam, Aditya Srivastava and Dayanand Shetty will be present for the ceremony along with famous actress from Marathi cinema, Mukta Barve,” said Dr Patel.
Post the inauguration, the opening film ‘The Weasel’s Tale’ directed by Juan José Campanella, Argentina, will be screened at the NFAI auditorium both at Prabhat road and Kothrud.
Marathi films and short films category
The Marathi Film Competition category was also announced by Dr Jabbar Patel in which the selected films will be vying for the The Government of Maharashtra’s “Sant Tukaram” Best International Marathi Film Award (Rs. 5 lakh).
•An added attraction is the special short film competition organized under PIFF in association with Tribal Research and Training Institute (TRTI), where 15 films have been selected for the competition.