Pune film festival to celebrate Marathi cinema

The ninth Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) 2010 to be held between January 6 and 13 will screen more than 150 Indian and international films at 11 screens. It will also celebrate 50 years of Maharashtra state and Marathi cinema.

Dr Jabbar Patel, director and Sabina Sanghvi, vice chairperson of PIFF said that Mughal-e-Azam a landmark period film in Indian cinema was made 50 years ago and to celebrate this, other period films made in different languages over these years will be screened in the festival. A special symposium has been organised on period or historic films on the occasion, they said. "We are also trying to get Dilip Kumar, who had played Salim in the film," Patel said.

PIFF will have films in various categories, which will be competing for awards in the World competition section, Marathi competition sand student competition section. "Other sections are Country Focus, Cinema of the World, Director Focus, Retrospectives, Tributes and Indian Cinema. The festival will also showcase the work of those who have received lifetime achievement awards," Patel said.

"This is the official festival of Maharashtra and we started the first world cinema competition in the country.

We are expecting over 8,000 delegates at the festival," said Ravi Gupta, General Secretary of Pune Festival Foundation. "Of the 350 world films for competition, 14 films are shortlisted by the team of juries with seven Marathi films in the competition. Japan is the country focus and 32 Japanese films and eight animation films will be shown in the festival."