Renowned actor, director and producer Kamal Haasan will inaugurate the sixth edition of Bangalore International Film Festival (BIFFes) at Jnana Jyothi Auditorium on December 26 in the presence of award winning Kannada actor Radhika Pandit, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, cine artistes-turned-politicians M.H. Ambareesh and Umashree.
Unlike the previous edition of BIFFes, cine enthusiasts will not be denied opportunity to watch their favourite films for non-availability of seats. “The seating capacity for this edition will be around 1,900 compared with 1,500 of the previous edition”, says N.R. Vishu Kumar, Information Director.
There will be around 230 screenings covering 160 films from 52 countries in seven screens of Fun Cinema (3), Lido Inox (2), Sulochana (1) and Priyadarshini (1).
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According to Mr. Kumar, in a span of four days, over 1,200 cine enthusiasts had registered as delegates. Considering the overwhelming response, he expects the registration to go up to 5,000 compared to 4,000 during the last edition. “Delegation fee for public is Rs. 500 and Rs. 250 for senior citizens, students, film-clubs and film industry members. Interested can register at the six centres opened in various parts of the city”, he said.
Kannada cinema industry is doing its best to make 6BIFFes a memorable event by ‘actively’ participating in the event. According to H.D. Gangaraju, president of the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce (KFCC), besides technicians, popular actors including Shivaraj Kumar, Puneet Rajkumar, Sudeep, Darshan, Ragini, Ramya and others are likely to participate in the eight-day event.
For the first time, an Audience Award for the best film has been instituted. The film will be selected through voting by participating delegates.
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Maintaining that, it is an opportunity to cine buffs to watch best of world cinema, artistic director BIFFes H.N. Narahari Rao said as one could watch 35 films in eight days, organisers would recommend the best of the lot, based on audience taste, if assistance is sought. Pouran Derakhshandeh, Iranian film director, producer, and Sri Lankan filmmaker Malini Fonseka are likely to attend the festival with their films.