FROM: Times of India: December 1 (Link not available) When the International Film Festival of India tried Panjim out for the first time in 2004, the entire waterfront came to a standstill. Tens of thousands of curious visitors clogged the promenade each evening, and traffic remained snarled to a standstill. But all that has changed over the intervening decade. Today, Goa’s capital has been confirmed as IFFI’s permanent venue, and the city handles the subcontinent’s premier cinema festival with barely a ripple. Minimal disruption all around.
Panjim’s ability to handle events of this magnitude without fuss has brought increasing attention and admiration. Now the city is quietly emerging as a prominent landmark in India’s cultural landscape. Now it’s not just IFFI, a whole series of innovative festivals are remaking Goa’s reputation far beyond the dominant cliché’s of sun, sand, beach parties and cheap booze. Days after IFFI ends, the Goa Arts and Literary Festival (GALF) begins. Since inception five years ago, this homegrown, strictly independent, non-profit and volunteer-driven showcase at the International Centre Goa (ICG) at Dona Paula (this writer is one of the organizers) has managed to attract a remarkable series of exclusive debuts and international book launches, including, most recently, the winner of the 2014 Shakti Bhatt Book Award, Pakistani novelist Bilal Tanweer’s ‘The Scatter Here is Too Great’. GALF 2014 (December 4-7) will be headlined by keynote addresses by Charles Correa and Wendell Rodricks on 4th December at Maquinez Palace, followed by Dr. Rajmohan Gandhi in conversation with Sagarika Ghose about Indian democracy. Goan-origin journalist and editor Rajdeep Sardesai’s hometown book release of his new bestseller ‘2014: The Election that Changed India’ caps an evening of book launches at ICG on 6th December, including ‘The Black Hill’ by Mamang Dai, and the latest collection of stories by Goa’s own Damodar Mauzo. More details at goaartlitfest.com On 19th December, the India Ideas Conclave 2014 begins at the Grand Hyatt in Bambolim, organized by India Foundation, the think tank that has already supplied two ministers to the Narendra Modi Government, Suresh Prabhu and Jayant Sinha. This new festival, according to one the India Foundation’s board, is conceived to “replace Tehelka’s ThinkFest” with an event featuring intellectuals, politicians and spokesmen associated with the Sangh Parivar. An impressive list of luminaries confirmed to attend includes Goan-origin senior British MP, Keith Vaz. Tehelka’s ThinkFest and India Ideas Conclave – and IFFI too – use Goa as an exotic backdrop to host speakers and deliberations that could otherwise happen anywhere else. But two charmingly conceived new festivals are designed to weave in and around Panjim’s contours, to highlight and uncover new facets of the proud little city by using avant-garde, world-class light and photo displays. Non-profit, and free-admission-to-all like GALF, the Story of Light Festival (thestoryoflight.org) is a project of the International Year of Light, “a global initiative adopted by the United Nations to raise awareness of how optical technologies promote sustainable development and provide solutions to worldwide challenges in energy, education, agriculture, communications and health.” In Panjim on 14-18 January 2015, this translates to a range of displays, exhibits, workshops and installations on a walking tour that starts at the Science Centre at Miramar and winds its way through the city. Starting on 25th February next year, Goa Photo (goaphoto.in) is an ambitious attempt to establish “an annual international photography festival” that will “transform the city into a platform for showcasing contemporary photography.” The inaugural edition features the acclaimed Spanish curator Frank Kalero, and brilliant photographers from a half-dozen countries whose work will together present a theme, ‘The Other’. A wonderful bonus is the second-ever Magnum Workshop in India, a four-day intensive course with some of the world’s best photographers that has a dedicated spot and scholarship for a talented young Goan. What do most of these excellent cultural initiatives share as a common denominator, and with the exquisite annual Monte Music Festival in Old Goa as well as the once-wonderful Fontainhas Arts Festival? Their organizers recognize the intrinsic charm and beauty of what already exists in Panjim, an often-overlooked and badly treated cultural jewel that mirrors and wonderfully represents the singular, profoundly confluential culture and identity of Goa and Goans. The best of the new events seek to evolve along with the city not to impose an alien vision, to fit in not drown out. In this regard, the newly trumpeted plans for vast new constructions dedicated to the fortnight-per-year International Film Festival of India should ring warning bells in the mind of every resident of Goa. Just when IFFI has begun to settle into a sustainable pattern, this administration seeks to dive into another round of its favourite activity: scam, superfluous “infrastructure-building” to solve a problem that does not exist. Nobody should be fooled.
