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Movie bonanza for residents as 18th Pune International Film Festival begins
Actor Vikram Gokhale and FTII chairman Bipin Singh were felicitated with the PIFF distinguished award at the inauguration ceremony held at Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir on Thursday
I dedicate the award to my late father and actor Chandrakant Gokhale who would have been 100 years old on January 7, 2020,” said actor Vikram Gokhale, who was presented the PIFF distinguished award at the inauguration of the 18th Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) held at Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir on Thursday.
Amit Vilasrao Deshmukh, state cultural minister, in his inaugural address said that he will gladly accept any proposals and ideas from the industry stalwarts to preserve the Maharashtrian culture, be in folk songs, theatre or cinema.
Deshmukh also went on to regale the audience with memories of his father Vilasrao Deshmukh with actor Vikram Gokhale and their antics in their youth. “My father spent 12 years pursuing education in Pune and his friendship with Vikram Gokhale is well known. My father often talks about their travels where they would roam in the by lanes of Latur on a moped. I am happy to be here at the opening of this prestigious film festival where Vikram Gokhale is getting an award,” said Deshmukh.
The tribal youth from Chandrapur performed a folk dance before the award ceremony and enthralled the audience.
The crowd erupted in applause when BP Singh, chairman FTII, came on to the stage with the entire cast of popular television series CID-Shivaji Satam, Aditya Shrivastava and Dayanand Shetty.
BP Singh, who was also felicitated with the PIFF distinguished award, said, “My relation with FTII is that I was a student of film and that was it. I appreciate that PIFF, which is a film festival, is acknowledging television too.’’
Music director Usha Khanna, who was bestowed with the SD Burman Award, was down with malaria and her family member collected the award on her behalf.
The film festival will be held from January 10 and will go on till January 16. Two hundred films will be screened at Inox, NFAI, Prabhat road and Kothrud, and PVR Pavillon Mall, SB road from 10 am to 9pm. Starting Friday, there is also a special exhibition on 60 years of Marathi cinema curated specially for PIFF by NFAI.
Standing in solidarity
PIFF director Dr Jabbar Patel acknowledged that despite this being the celebration of 60 years of FTII, as well as Maharashtra, he understands the students’ agitation at FTII and did not want to disturb them in their fight for their rights.
He also said that PIFF is also celebrating centenary of Majrooh Sultanpuri, V Shantaram, Kaifi Azmi, Shamsad Begum and Italian film director Fedrico Fellini. He also expressed his grief over losing actor Shreeram Lagoo.
