British film on Ramanujam to kick off film fest in Goa

NEW DELHI: A British film on Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan’s life "The Man Who Knew Infinity" will open the 46th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) on November 20. Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor will be chief guest for the 11-day film carnival in Goa.
The Matthew Brown-directed film sees Indian-origin British star Dev Patel in the titular role along side British star Jeremy Irons as professor G H Hardy.Set against the backdrop of Cambridge, the film explores their unusual friendship that changed mathematics.
"The festival will present the best of the domestic and international talent. This year the festival will showcase 187 films from 89 countries in World Cinema section along with 26 Feature and 21 Non-Feature films in Indian Panorama section," Arun Jaitley, minister for information and broadcasting, said.
Announcing the Indian Panorama, Jaitley stated that the section will have a confluence of remarkable films from different languages and states. Salman Khan's "Bajrangi Bhaijaan", Cannes FIPRESCI winner "Masaan", India' Oscar entry "Court" are some of the films in the Indian Panorama section (Feature).
The International Competition section, to be chaired by eminent filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, features 15 movies including two Indian titles -- Kaushik Ganguly's "Cinemawala" and "Natoker Moto" by Debesh Chatterjee -- from Indian Panorama.
Spain is the focus country this year with a special delegation flying down to meet Indian filmmakers here.
The festival will be held in the shadow of protests. FTII students who have recently been on strike for 139 days said they would take their protest to Goa while the Film Federation of India (FFI) and Federation of Western India Cine Employees' (FWICE) have announced that they would boycott the Goa festival. Responding to the protests Jaitley said, "I don't understand why anyone should disrupt an international event like IFFI. It is not a good practice."
IFFI in collaboration with the International Council for Film, Television and Audiovisual Communication (ICFT), Paris and UNESCO will be presenting the "ICFT- UNESCO Fellini Prize" to a film which reflects the ideals of peace, tolerance, non-violence and friendship promoted by the UNESCO. The award is named after great Italian director Federico Fellini.
For the first time, the festival in association with the Oscar Academy, will organise master classes with eminent Academy members Mark Mangini, Milt Shefter and Humphrey Dixon on varied topics like sound designing, film archive and film editing.