The Indian Panorma, the five-day annual film festival, will begin here on Friday with the screening of a selection of regional films. Chief Minister V. Narayanasamy will launch the film festival at Murugaa cinema at Thattanchavady.
He will present the Sri Sankaradass Swamigal Best Film Award to Amshan Kumar, director of Manusangada (Tamil) during the festival (September 7-11). It will be screened after the inauguration of the festival.
For the last 23 years, the Best Film Award, which includes a cash prize of ₹1 lakh and a silver memento to the director, has been a festival tradition, from Parinayam (Hariharan) in 1995 to Irudhi Suttru (Sudha Kongara) in 2017. The Indian Panorama 2015 is a collaborative effort of the Department of Information and Publicity, Government of Puducherry, Navadarshan Film Society and Alliance Francaise. The film festival conducted in Pondicherry is a unique event in South India.
The best of these films screened here is selected for the Best Film Award given in the name of Sri Sankaradass Swamigal since 1995.
Every year, selected films are screened in the Indian Panorama section of the International Film Festival of India, which will be reviewed by national and international film critics and journalists. These films are made available to film festivals conducted in various countries across the globe and to the film festivals conducted within India.
Uninterrupted for the last 35 years, the film festival has focused on projecting myriad aspects of cultural unity in diversity through screening of films of varied languages. A Bengali movie Bisorjon will be screened at 6 p.m. on Saturday followed by Take Off , a Malayalam movie on Sunday and Railway Children , a Kannada movie, on Monday.
On the concluding day on September 11, a Hindi movie Newton will be screened at 6 p.m. Admission is free.
