Portuguese film ‘The Consul of Bordeaux’ will flag off this year’s edition of International Film Festival of India (IFFI), the organisers said on Saturday.
IFFI Director Shankar Mohan said that the film was selected as it goes well with the theme of the festival ‘the whole world is one family’
IFFI 2011 would be held in Goa from November 23 to December 3.
The 90-minute film is directed by Manuel Gonzales and the preview committee which went through 500 films decided on this film because of its story, he said.
The film is based on the life of Portuguese consul general Aristides de Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux, France, who helped thousands of Jewish refugees to extricate themselves from France, after Hitler’s armed forces invaded Belgium and the Netherlands in May 1940.
The ten-day long festival is expected to have more than 8,000 delegates participating in it, Mr. Mohan said.
The festival which was earlier a property of Directorate of Film Festival (DFF) has now been de-linked from it by forming IFFI Directorate under the Union Information and Broadcasting ministry and functions as an independent entity, he said.
