Veteran actors Rekha and Kamal Hassan will grace the opening and closing ceremonies respectively of the forthcoming International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which starts on November 22nd in Panaji.

“Rekha and Kamal Hassan will be the chief guests of the opening and closing ceremonies, respectively, at IFFI 2008, besides the presence of the governor of Goa, S.S Siddhu, Chief Minister Digamber Kamath and the minister of state for Information and Broadcasting Anand Sharma,” said S.M. Khan, Director of film festivals.

Bollywood actress Amrita Rao will host the inaugural ceremony. Held between November 22 and December 2nd, the focus will be on Iran, Russia and Switzerland.
‘The opening film of the festival has not yet been finalized due to tight competition between the two short-listed films — Hong Kong director Peter Chan’s Warlords and Eric Khoo’s My Magic from Singapore,” said S M Khan, festival director.

Peter Chan heads the jury, which comprises Venice Film Festival director Marco Mueller, Iranian actor Niki Karimi, Filipino director Lav Diaz and Indian actor Tabu. Iranian film Song of Sparrows will be screened as the closing film.

In Indian Panorama section, 26 feature films and 21 non-feature films will be screened. Special retrospectives on film moguls Bimal Roy and L V Prasad will be held to mark their birth centenary year. A retrospective on 75 years of Kannada cinema will be presented.

In the competition section at IFFI, 15 films from all over the world will be showcased. Films in the competition section include My Mother’s Tears (Argentina/Germany), The Shaft (China), Rupantor (Bangladesh), The Song of Sparrows (Iran), The Red Spot (Japan/Germany), Tulpan (Kazakhstan), Pensil (Malaysia), Ploning (Philippines), Akasa Kusum (Sri Lanka) and The Coffin (Thailand).

Film India Worldwide will be another attraction in the cinema of world section, which will showcase films made by Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in collaboration with foreign filmmakers
Films of veterans like Dilip Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, B. Saroja Devi and Tapan Sinha will be presented in Lifetime Classics.

IFFI will also pay homage to late filmmakers G.P. Sippy and B.R. Chopra