Posts Tagged ‘Panaji’
Written by admin on 30 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 30 (IANS) Punjabi film “Anhey Ghore Da Daan” (“Alms For A Blind Horse”) won the Golden Peacock award for best film at the 43rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) here Friday.
The National Film Development Corporation movie (NFDC), adapted from a novel by Gurdial Singh and directed by Gurvinder Singh, was one of the 15 films in the international competition section vying for a cash prize of Rs.four million.
The Silver Peacock award for best director went to Kyu-hwan Jeon for South Korean film “The Weight”.
Anjali Patil won the best actress Silver Peacock for her role in Tamil-Sinhalese film “With You Without You” while Marcin Dorocinski was named the best actor for Polish film “Rose”.
A special jury Silver Peacock award was given to Lucy Mulloy for Spanish film “Una Noche”.
Filmmaker Mira Nair was given a special peacock and a Centenary Film Award for her new Hollywood movie, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, which was the 11-day festival’s closing film.
Tags: Goa, Panaji
Posted in Entertainment, Hollywood, National | No Comments »
Written by admin on 30 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 30 (IANS) Former tennis player Ashok Amritraj, who is more known as a Hollywood producer than a tennis-pro, said he would love to make a film on tennis.
Speaking as a special guest at the 43rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI), he said: “Visually, tennis has not been shown in a manner that makes the audience understand how difficult it is to play the game. I hope we are able to do this.”
Ashok’s brothers Anand and Vijay are tennis icons in India. Vijay is a well-renowned international tennis commentator.
Producer of several action oriented films in the 1980s and the 1990s, Ashok said that now actors don’t need body bulk and muscle like Jean Claude Van Damme to carry off an action role.
“Visually cinema is changing, which will have an impact on international and Indian cinema action as associated with stars earlier, like Jean Claude Van Damme. Now you have a skinny Spider-man flying through the air, with excellent visual effects. Visual effects are being associated with action,” he said.
He added that it was wrong to construe Hollywood as commercial cinema alone.
“Hollywood is not limited to commercial, mainstream cinema, it has much more. While Matt Damon does a ‘Bourne Identity’, he also does a ‘Contagion’. George Clooney does an ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ and ‘The Descendants’,” he said.
Tags: Goa, Panaji
Posted in Entertainment, Hollywood, National | No Comments »
Written by admin on 30 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 30 (IANS) An underdog at the film festival, “Anhey Ghode Da Daan” (Alms for a Blind Horse) won the prestigious Golden Peacock at the 43rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which concluded in Goa Friday.
Directed by Gurvinder Singh, it was one of the 15 films in the international competition section which were vying for the Golden Peacock.
The other Indian film which was in the competition section was “Elar Char Adhyay”, a Bengali film directed by Bappaditta Bandopadhyay.
Earlier this year, Singh had received a National Award for best direction for “Anhey Ghode Da Daan”, which is his directorial debut.
Produced by NFDC, the movie had also won the Special Jury Mention at the 5th Abu Dhabi Film Festival.
–Indo-asian news service
maya/rb/vm
Tags: Goa, Panaji
Posted in Entertainment, National | No Comments »
Written by admin on 30 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 30 (IANS) Internationally acclaimed director Meera Nair Friday said her latest film, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, is her most ambitious project yet.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which was the closing movie at the 43rd International Film Festival of India, is based on a 2007 bestseller of the same name by Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid.
A brilliant exploration of bias and the phenomenon of globalization, the film is about a Pakistani Princeton graduate who is torn between his American dream and the call of his homeland.
Its sense of nothing being completely what it seems comes across in an unsettling manner from the characters’ divided selves, or through the locations, which see Atlanta standing in for New York, and Delhi substituting for Lahore and Istanbul.
It is how “We, East and West, see each other”, said Nair about the film.
The “Reluctant Fundamentalist” is made with an international cast and crew of Hollywood, Indian and Pakistani actors, depicts two very different worlds coming together through dialogue.
It took three years to adapt the novel into a screenplay and was shot across four continents.
The movie is a comment on what is going on in the world today. “We discuss two very important forms of fundamentalism – that of the capitalists and that of terrorists,” Nair said.
Nair’s debut film “Salam Bombay” was nominated at the US Academy Awards for best foreign language film in 1988. Her other acclaimed films are “Mississipi Masala”, “Monsoon Wedding”, “The Namesake”, “New York”, “I Love You”.
Nair is the founder of Maisha, a centre in Kampala, Uganda, that provides film labs and workshops for aspiring screen-writers, directors, actors, technicians, and documentary makers from Africa.
Tags: Goa, Panaji
Posted in Entertainment, Hollywood, National | No Comments »
Written by admin on 30 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 30 (IANS) Goa’s Konkani cinema is about to get red hot. After scorching the silver screen with a bare-backed performance in “Hate Story”, Bengali bombshell Paoli Dam will act in a film directed by up-and-coming Goan director Laxmikant Shetgaonkar, says the actress.
“I am in Laxmikant Shetgaonkar’s next film. We discussed the project when I met him in Cannes,” the actress said of her 2011 meeting in France with the director, whose first film “Poltodcho Munis” won critical acclaim when it was released a few years ago.
The Konkani film revolves around Baga beach, one of the popular beaches in Goa, and involves the slices of lives of tourists coming to the beach.
Paoli plays the role of a north Indian tourist coming to Baga, she told IANS Thursday on the eve of the conclusion of the 43rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) here.
The actress, whose claim to celluloid fame has been a raunchy role with part lesbian action in “Hate Story”, and a nude sequence in another Bengali film, was here to attend the screening of her new film “Elar Char Adhyay” at the Goa festival.
“I want to be part of films with a difference,” she said, adding that she liked the director and the idea and her character in the Konkani film.
A true-blue Bengali, who loves her fish, Paoli confesses that she loves the fish in Goa too. “I love the food here. Just can’t get enough of it,” she says.
Tags: Goa, Panaji
Posted in Entertainment, National | No Comments »
Written by admin on 29 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 29 (IANS) A British national was Thursday robbed of Rs.one lakh at knife-point outside a foreign exchange outlet near here, police said.
Police inspector Tushar Vernekar told IANS that the British citizen had just exchanged euros to rupees and was exiting the store in Mapusa, 10 km from here, when an unidentified person armed with a knife accosted him and snatched the bag containing the money from his hand.
Earlier this month, a Russian and a British tourist were robbed in two separate incidents in the north Goa beach belt.
Goa attracts over 2.6 million tourists annually.
Tags: Panaji
Posted in National | No Comments »
Written by admin on 29 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 29 (IANS) Victims of rape, targeted acid attacks and human trafficking in Goa will be eligible for up to Rs.10 lakh as compensation, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said Thursday.
“The maximum compensation we have earmarked is Rs.10 lakh per person. The scheme also complies with Supreme Court directions in such cases,” Parrikar told IANS, adding that this was perhaps the highest compensation any state offered for victims of such attacks.
The decision on the policy of monetary compensation for victims was taken at a cabinet meeting Wednesday chaired by the chief minister. A corpus for disbursement as per the Goa Victim Compensation Scheme (2012) will have a separate budgetary provision for it.
“Under the scheme, the Goa government will constitute a fund called the victim compensation fund for which a budgetary provision will be made every year. The victims will be compensated from the fund, when recommended by the court,” said a note circulated during the meeting.
“The quantum of compensation will be decided by the district or the state legal service authority,” it said.
The victims will be eligible for compensation for “loss and injury” if they have not been compensated under any other scheme of the central or state government, insurance company or any other institution, or if the injury caused by the incident causes “substantial loss of income to the victim’s family making it difficult to meet ends without any compensation”.
Tags: Panaji
Posted in National | No Comments »
Written by admin on 28 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 28 (IANS) Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar Wednesday said that no mining would be allowed in Goa until the Supreme Court−imposed ban is lifted from the state.
“There is no question of restarting mining in Goa until the Supreme Court decides so,” Parrikar told media persons after a cabinet meeting here. He added that the mining and geology department was vetting its records in order to streamline the mining operations in the state.
“Until that is over, we will not be in a position to restart mining,” Parrikar said.
The chief minister also assured the people that the Goa mining crisis would not affect the state treasury, and said the state government was looking at ways to make up for the revenue loss.
“Goa gets around Rs.900 crore from the mining industry. We have already recovered Rs.350 crore before the mining operations were suspended,” Parrikar said, adding that despite the mining ban, the state government will be able to generate Rs.400−500 crore this fiscal.
Mining in Goa has been halted since Oct 5 after the apex court, hearing a public interest litigation filed by activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan, banned mining in the state until a central empowered committee (CEC) appointed by it completes a probe.
The Justice M.B. Shah Commission, probing illegal mining in Goa, has in its report nailed a Rs.35,000 crore illegal mining scam in Goa.
Tags: Goa, Panaji
Posted in Business, National | No Comments »
Written by admin on 28 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 28 (IANS) Goa will adopt a single−window clearance system for projects in key thrust areas like tourism, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said Wednesday.
The single−window system would help accelerate the pace of decision making in the tourism sector, Parrikar said at a press conference after a cabinet meeting here.
“Tourism is going to be one of our main (growth) drivers. We need quick decisions to attract investment to the sector,” Parrikar said.
The chief minister’s statement comes at a time when the Goa government is trying to diversify its tourism portfolio from beach tourism to adventure sports, wildlife and river tourism.
Parrikar earlier announced that apart from tourism, industries like mid−level IT companies and information technology enabled services (ITES) firms were on top of the state government’s agenda.
“These (mid−level IT and ITES firms) are going to be our focus areas because these industries are non−polluting and have a good scope of employing the local talent,” he said.
Goa, one of the most popular beach tourism destinations in the country, attracts over 2.6 million tourists annually.
Tags: Goa, Panaji
Posted in Business, National | No Comments »
Written by admin on 26 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 26 (IANS) In the dark bleak days of Turkish cinema, when film making virtually rolled to a stop, it was Bollywood which occupied the mindspace of the Turkish filmgoers, leading director M. Tayfur Aydin said Monday.
Aydin’s film “Do not forget me Istanbul” is playing at the 43rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI), as part of the ‘Country Focus’ section on Turkey and its cinema.
“Turkey was at one point the third largest film producing country, after Hollywood and Bollywood. And Bollywood movies were shown in Turkey in the 1980s. There was nothing else to show, Bollywood became an entertainment during these dark days of Turkish cinema, from 1980 to 1993, where there were just 5 or 6 movies a year,” he said.
Bollywood, he said, had learnt the rare art of presenting cinema intellectually as well as with emotion.
“When you prepare to serious present art, you go about it very intellectually. But soon you realize that emotions are important too. And Bollywood seems to know that somehow, they know the formulas,” he said, adding that Turkey needed to be “inspired” by such cinema.
The ‘Country Focus’ section intends to promote a greater understanding of the traditions and cultures of the focused country’s society through handpicked cinema from the culture in this case that of Turkey.
The Country Focus package at this IFFI has eight films which includes names films like Aydin’s “Do Not Forget Me Istanbul”, “Hidden Lives”, “Love and Revolution”, “The Son”, “The Stranger”, “Trace”, “Voice of My Father” and “Where the Fire Burns”.
Tags: Goa, Panaji
Posted in Entertainment, Hollywood, National | No Comments »
Written by admin on 26 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 26 (IANS) Police have arrested a film festival delegate from Kerala for stealing a laptop belonging to the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) director Shankar Mohan.
Superintendent of Police (North) Vijay Singh told reporters here that a delegate from Kerala M.K. Venu had stolen the laptop from Menon’s cabin where there was no one around Friday.
“We have recovered the laptop from Venu’s hotel room in Panaji,” Singh said.
Mohan had filed a police complaint last week after he discovered that his laptop was stolen from his cabin located in the well−guarded IFFI campus.
Tags: Goa, Panaji
Posted in Entertainment, National | No Comments »
Written by admin on 26 November 2012
Panaji, Nov 26 (IANS) Goa puts on its best Spanish accent this year as it prepares to say a holy ‘ola’ to devotees of a legendary Basque saint who put the state on the world map back in the 1500s.
The influential Roman Catholic church in Goa will, for the first time, honour the patron saint of Goa, St. Francis Xavier, and his devotees with a prayer service in Spanish in December during the annual feast attended by over a million devotees from India and across the world.
“We have so many brethren who come to pray in honour of St. Francis Xavier.
Several of them come from Spain, where the saint hails from. The mass in Spanish is for them to feel at home,” Fr Savio Baretto, rector of the church, told IANS.
The saint, who hailed from Navarre, in the Basque region of Spain, heralded Christianity in Goa and was incidentally also responsible for initiating the process for the brutal Inquisition in Goa, which saw the tenets of Christianity imposed by force and violence on Goan subjects.
After his death in 1552 in Shangchuan, China, his body was first ferried to Malacca, Malaysia, and in 1553 stored in the grand Basilica of Bom Jesus, one of the oldest churches in Goa.
St. Francis Xavier, incidentally, was among the first Christian missionaries to travel in Japan and Borneo.
Believers regard it as a miracle that the body has not decomposed for nearly five hundred years. Sceptics point out that the saint’s mortal remains were embalmed to prevent decomposition.
Every year, more than a million believers throng the church complex in Old Goa, located a short distance from the state capital.
Once in a decade, the throng multiplies manifold, when the church exposes the saint’s remains in a glass−topped silver casket to devotees, in an event known as the “exposition”. The last such exposition occurred in 2004.
It is to cater to this frenzy of worship that church authorities in Goa have decided to organise prayer services in multiple languages, apart from Spanish.
“We also have prayer services in Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil too, because we have thousands of worshippers coming from states where those languages are spoken,” Baretto said.
The popularity of the saint is such that even the Goa tourism department has decided to tap Navarre and the Basque region as source destinations for attracting tourists.
Just last year a team of top tourism officials from Goa had visited Spain to come up with mutual ways to promote tourism.
“We are keen on developing a Goa−Navarre circuit and will be travelling to the capital Pamplona shortly. A large number of people travel to Goa and Navarre every year on pilgrimages. We are keen on building a stronger relationship with the region to boost inter−regional tourism between the two countries which have a lot in common,” a top tourism official had said, claiming that both the regions shared “emotional ties”.
Each year, the feast begins Nov 24 and ends Dec 3.
(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be contacted at mayabhushan.n@ians.in)
Tags: Panaji
Posted in National | No Comments »
