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THE CHANGING FACE OF IFFI
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THE CHANGING FACE OF IFFI

Uncategorized December 12, 2025 , by

FOR 21 of my nearing 25 years in Goa I have been enchanted by IFFI. This year’s 56th International Festival of India was well organized with many more add-ons to make it meaningful for the ordinary Goan at street level. I must confess as a senior IFFIgoer I wasn’t able to see as many films as I wanted to for a couple of reasons, including the one that one is at the mercy of a hand phone performing or half-performing or going dead altogether, and therefore requiring time-consuming attention. Of course, if you don’t own a hand phone you’re kind of as good as dead and have no right to live.
When hand phones fail or get clogged up with excess content is there something to fall back on? We are moving into a world where everyone thinks or is forced to think that technology is a democratic tool, but how torturous if not tyrannical it can be if one is not schooled enough to handle it? For most seniors in their 50 plus, plus age group…a big sigh…like it or not, the hand phone has become something like a mod con body extension. We sleep with it, wake up with it, and go into a depression the moment it fails to respond to one’s gentle or not so gentle fingers, something like that.
TODAY, it is not just filmmaking which has and is undergoing sweeping changes at Speedy Gonsalves speed, but somewhere in the course of attending some of the master classes it registers that that when it comes to the primary mode of making a film, the camera, we’ve come a long, long way from black and white, silent cinema, to technicolor and today’s digital and AI age when making a film is as easy as a breeze, it no longer matters how short or long it is, fiction on non-fiction, half-truth or utter lies…as long it mirrors, titillates, entertains, drives societal interests.
I can say over 21 years I have been a witness to the changing faces of IFFI good, bad and sometime really ugly; but yet again there is no enchantment like viewing a film on the big screen as in the days of old. With all the good intentions in the world IFFI was a bit of a too much this year at least for me – a cross between a film festival and a mela or fun-fair, it was difficult to keep track of it without suffering confusion, exhaustion, or just plain desperate “I give up, it’s not worth seeing a film like this!” Especially, if those kids at the audi entries and exits won’t let me visit the INOX washrooms after a film – quite simply because these washrooms are most accessible and don’t require long walks. As simple as that. I wonder what percent of IFFIgoers are senior citizens, at least 30% to 35%? Does it matter? No, of course not.
THEN as usual the temptation of seeing some thought-provoking films was irresistible and I succeeded in catching at least a dozen films or so (as against my 25 TO 35 films in the early years of IFFI in Goa!); most left behind very fruitful thoughts about life and our changing times.
At least a few of the films I succeeded in booking online are worth a second viewing, including the inaugural film, the Brazilian “The Blue Trail” (“O Ultimo Azul”). A treat of a film described as one of today’s dystopia film. We have the state seeking to “un-burden” young folk from taking care of their seniors, seeks to pack them off to distant heavenly colonies. Under the euphemistic excuse that you’re a honorable senior citizen now … our suspicious heroine, Teresa, 77, doesn’t think old age is a honor. She doesn’t like the subtle brainwash one bit and goes for an escapade down the Amazon river. Amazing, poignant narrative, drives home the message that with money enough one may live forever in freedom, otherwise even the state (not to mention adult children) want to put you away… in an invisible prison far from familiar home.
Then the Iranian “The President’s Cake” definitely deserves the Oscar! I don’t think I will ever feel like eating a cake again after this very finely layered film bringing out the hardships, ironies, gentle pathos of people making ends meet at the bottom of the pyramid of the good life, during President Sadam Hussain’s regime. A decree goes out in Iraq and everyone has to celebrate the president’s birthday by distributing cakes; an obnoxious teacher tells 9 years old Lamia she must bake a cake and bring it to class, he will be judge (“I haven’t eaten a cake for a long time!”).
Poor Lamia goes into a terrible dilemma wondering how to get eggs, flour, butter, and so sets out on an educative adventure into impoverished, on-its-knees, village Iraq. This Hasan Hadi-directed film is rich in insight, universal truths, unforgettable.
“Bilyarista”—a Phil Giordano (Italian-American filmmaker based in Manila)’s film is set in the Philippines, recounts a searing story about how poor young women become billiard champions, winning big money for their manipulative bosses.
Then, Govind Nihalani’s “Party” brings alive a hypocritical world of privilege and vanity, comes with a sickening message — even those presuming to hail from a presumably more sensitive world of art and creativity… crucify those who fight for a more equitable world. A terrific star cast here in Manohar Singh, Vijaya Mehta, Rohini Hattangadi, Om Puri, Pearl Padamsee, Naseeruddin Shah, all in class of their own.
Ashutosh Singh’s film “Khoya Paya” (2025) offers a brilliant take of the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, weaving in a narrative of a partially afflicted with Alzheimar’s mother being left behind by her beloved son (recently married)…in the Khoya Paya tent they try to trace the son in vain; and the stunning finale, I won’t spoil it, be sure to catch this one for our times!
My 2025 IFFI film viewing concluded with Vera Chytilova’s 1982 Czechoslovakia film “Calamity”— about navigating bureaucratic absurdities and much else in a train journey which ends in a snow avalanche and the passengers caught in it, will they live or suffocate to death in snow? So much snow on screen made me shiver in the audi! Interesting how the most reticent folk come alive in a calamity.
This is to say it’s worth brushing up one’s skills with the hand phone! IFFI is here to stay in Goa for Goa with all its shortcomings is blessed by good weather, become an envied holiday destination, most everyone loves to come to Goa for a break — including the big daddies of Delhi. Delhi may as well move to Goa and Goa turn into the capital of India!

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