PUNE: The CID fame, TV producer and FTII Chairman BP Singh and national award winner and veteran actor Vikram Gokhale will be honoured with the prestigious Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) Distinguished Award. This year’s SD Burman International Award for Creative Music and Sound will be conferred on music director Usha Khanna.
There was a moment of restlessness when the director and chairman, PIFF, Jabbar Patel announced the name of Singh for the award. Apparently, it was alleged that his name came up on the list of awardees since he’s chairman of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and it was the venue for the festival. However, Patel made it clear that they received the shortlisted names from the film industry veterans.
Patel said, “We asked them to select names of their former students who have been doing well in the film and television industry. They gave us names and we selected Singh because we cannot deny his contrition to the TV industry. He successfully created a show like CID on the noir genre, which was a difficult one to do. There were few makers who have followed a particular genre all through their career.”
Meanwhile, Pune Film Foundation and the State Governor will inaugurate the 18th PIFF at Balgandharva Rangmandir, 5 pm on January 9. For this inauguration, the leading actors of TV serials CID, Shivaji Satam, Aditya Srivastava, Dayanand Shetty and Marathi actress Mukta Barve will be present.
The Argentinian movie ‘The Weasel Tale’ directed by Juan José Campanella will be shown after the inauguration ceremony at NFAI, Law College Road and NFAI, Kothrud as the opening film of PIFF.
This year, a special short film competition was organised under PIFF in association with Tribal Research and Training Institute (TRTI). The short films like Togetherness by Amar Melgiri, Rani Beti by Dharma Wankhade and many more films have been shortlisted for the screening at this film festival.
PIFF MARATHI FILM ENTRIES
Marathi Film Competition Category entries which are going to be screened at PIFF include:
- Tujhya Aaila (Shivi Nay, Khelacha Nav Hay Te) by Sujay Dahake
- Chivati by Rajkumar Tangade
- Y by Ajit Wadikar
- Photo Prem by Aditya Rathi and Gayatri Patil
- Smile Please by Vikram Phadnis
- Bonsai by Sameer Patil
- Anandi Gopal by Sameer Vidhwans
