The curtains came down on the eight day long International Film Festival of India (IFFI) today with Iranian film "Daughter" helmed by Reza Mirkarimi winning the coveted Golden Peacock Award.
Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore conferred this award during the concluding ceremony in the presence of "Bahubali" director SS Rajamouli as the chief guest.
"Daughter" is a story about the girl who exasperated by her father's authoritarian behaviour, announces she is off to Tehran to say farewell to one of her best friends who is leaving Iran for good and what happens thereafter.
For the IFFI 2016, the international competition section had total 15 movies which were judged by a panel of jury headed by writer and director Ivan Passer.
Special jury award was won by the film from Republic of Korea "The Throne", directed by Lee Joon-Ik.
The film is about a 18th century king who punishes his own traitor son.
The Best Actor Female award was bagged by Elina Vaska for her Latvian movie "Mellow Mud", directed by Renars Vimba.
The Best Actor Male award was won by Farhad Aslani for "Daughter".
The Best Director award was jointly-shared by Baris Kaya and Soner Caner for Turkish film "Rauf".
"Rauf" is the story of a boy whofinds himself in a big platonic love, in an effort to delight the girl whom he love in a world which loses the colour even in the daylight.
ICFT UNESCO's Gandhi award for the director was won by Mustafa Kara for his film "Cold of Kalandar" and the special Jury mention award was given to Tiffany Hsuig for the Korean movie "The Apology".
The Centenary Award for the Best Debut Feature of the director was won by Pepa San Martin for the film "Ra Ra".
"Those people who appreciate cinema and who can see the
film over and over again, I think for them there can be no better place then to come for this IFFI to be able to sit with the experts who come from across the globe who makes best cinema," said Rathore.
Stressing that the digitalisation will change the face of film distribution, Rathore said "not too long ago, in 2002 films got status of industry and and now when you check back the facts and figure, the largest top 15 films in terms of revenue generation came from multiplexes."
"When you saw seed at the right time you can reap the benefits later. At this time we have one screen for a lakh of a population which is far less than US. The next big screen would be in your pad government is digitalising so that the people can enjoy the film sitting at their houses. There is huge convergence happening and government is committed to it," he added.
Rajamouli said the biggest beneficiaries of this film festival are young film makers who have opportunity to look at the movies from across the world.
"It is a great experience. This is not the ending but beginning of the film festival that will help you in shaping your own career," he said.
Goa Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar said IFFI promotes Goa as a creative hub.
"Some of the internationally famed directors during their press conferences have said that considering the response received during the festival, they have been encouraged to shoot their films in Goa," he said.
The CM said the Konkani film "K Sera Sera" which was in the Indian panorama was amongst the films that received huge response.
"We had to repeat the screening of the movie when it went houseful once. For the second time too, the film was full house," he added.
The festival saw screening of around 300 films from 90 countries.
