Hollywood veteran filmmaker Martin Scorsese and Hungarian filmmaker Istevan Szabo will be honoured with the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement award at this year’s International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur announced on Friday.
The 52nd edition of the film festival will be held from November 20 to 28 in Goa.
Scorese is one of the pioneer of the New Hollywood Era, widely regarded as one of the greated directors in film history. Scorsese has directed Oscar-winning movies such as Taxi Driver and Goodfellas.
Meanwhile, Szabo is one of the most critically acclaimed Hungarian film directors of the past few decades known for films like Mephisto (1981) Father (1966).
In a First, OTT players to participate at 52nd IFFI.
Union Minister Anurag Thakur on Friday also announced that for the first time ever IFFI has invited OTT players to participate in the festival. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Zee5, Voot and Sony Liv will participate at the film festival through exclusive Masterclasses, content launches and previews, curated film package screenings, and various other on-ground and virtual events.
Netflix will be organising a 3-day virtual Masterclass by the Paris based renowned school of image and arts, Gobelins School L’image. The festival will see India premiere of Netflix movie The Power of the Dog by Jane Campion and special screening of Kartik Aaryan’s film Dhamaka.
SonyLiv is organising a masterclass by Scam-1992 screenplay writer – Sumit Purohit and Saurav Dey, while Zee5 has specially curated Breakpoint — the series on Tennis stars Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, by Nitesh Tiwari and Ashwini Iyer Tiwari, for IFFI.
‘Will be many firsts at this year’s IFFI’
Anurag Thakur said there will be many firsts at this year’s IFFI. His ministry has planned a masterclass for young people in direction, acting, cinematography, editing, and production.
“As India is celebrating 75 years of independence, we have started a new initiative for training 75 creative minds of tomorrow. These young talented people will be offered an opportunity to apply for a masterclass with the experts. The participants will be shortlisted by a jury and get an opportunity to interact with industry leaders,” said Thakur.
BRICS Film Festival
Union Minister Anurag Thakur also announced that for the first time ever, films from five BRICS nations will be showcased through the BRICS Film Festival alongside IFFI. The five countries vizi.e. Brazil, Russia, South Africa, China and India are also the Focus Countries of the 52nd IFFI.