PANAJI:  Curtains will rise on the International Film Festival of India 2009 on November 23, with nearly 6,000 delegates and around 350 media persons, besides a number of national and international film personalities as well as delegations from the film and film-related industries attending the 11-day mega film event.

The renowned actress, Waheeda Rehman will inaugurate the 40th edition of the prestigious film festival in the presence of the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Ms Ambika Soni, the Governor, Dr S S Siddhu, the Chief Minister, Mr Digambar Kamat, the I&B secretary, Mr Raghu Menon and the director of film festivals, Mr S M Khan. The new generation actress, Asin will be the special guest, while internationally famed actor, Kabir Bedi and noted film artist, Divya Dutta will compere the opening ceremony.
The inaugural session will be followed by a dance performance by the troupe of well-known Bharatnatyam dancer, Leela Samson, and the inaugural film ‘Wheat’, a Chinese production.  
The International Section at the IFFI 2009 will include Cinema of the World category, having 55 films from 45 countries. Another important component of the Foreign Section would be retrospectives of well-known Directors namely Gurinder Chadha, Nonzee Nimabitur, Roland Reber, Joao Batista and Manoel De Olivera.
The Continent Focus, this year is on Latin America, while the Country Focus would be on Croatia, Italy, Poland, Estonia and France. Film India Worldwide is another attraction in the Cinema of World category, which will showcase films made by non-resident Indians (NRIs) in collaboration with foreign filmmakers. There is also a section on Anti-war Films.
The international jury at the festival comprises of prominent directors/actors/film critics from different part of the world namely Joao Batista de Andrade (Chairman), Vic Sarin (Canada), Ken’ichi Okubo (Japan), Jean-Michel Frodon (France) and Sarika (India).
The Indian Panorama will showcase 26 feature films and 18 non-feature films. These includes films such as ‘Shob Charitro Kalponik’ (Bengali), ‘Kaminey’ (Hindi), ‘Harishchandrachi Factory’ (Marathi), ‘Ijjodu’ (Kannada), ‘Pasanga’ (Tamil), ‘Kutty Srank’ (Malayalam) and ‘Haat -  The Weekly Bazaar’ (Rajasthani).
The bouquet of non-feature films includes ‘Bilal’ (Bengali), ‘What If?’ (English), ‘Superman of Malegaon’ (Hindi), ‘Illisa Anagi Mahao’ (Manipuri) and ‘Kelkkunnundo (Malayalam)’.
The Indian Panorama will open with the Konkani feature film, ‘Paltadcho Munis’ directed by Laxmikant Shetgaonkar and English non-feature film,  ‘Dot in for Motion’ directed by Anirban Datta.
The list of ‘Indian Premieres’ section includes films namely ‘Red Alert’ (Hindi) directed by Ananth Mahadevan, ‘And it Goes’ (English) directed by Amol Palekar, ‘Vimukhti’ (Kannada) directed by P Sheshadri, ‘I am 24’ (Hindi) directed by Saurabh Shukla, ‘Shahrukh Bola Khubsoorat Hai Tu’ (Hindi) directed by Makrand Deshpande and ‘God Lives in the Himalayas’ (English) directed by Sanjeev Srinivas, besides ‘Zagor’, a Konkani film directed by Sangram Gaikwad and ‘Janma’, a Marathi production directed by Tapan Acharya, both Goan entries.
The festival film screenings at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao, will be inaugurated on November 24, while the same day will witness inauguration of ‘India – The Big Picture’ conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry as well as Film Bazaar conducted by the National Film Development Corporation.
‘Moments with Maestros’, a section including bouquet of films on Indian music exponents would be presented by Films Division, and also inaugurated on November 24, in the presence of the santoor maestro, Pt Shivkumar Sharma, actor, Vishwajeet and music directors, Ravi as well as Anandji (Kalyanji-Anandji), besides Nirmala Devi, wife of the late music director Pt Husnalal. The section will open with a documentary on the legendary playback singer, Mohammed Rafi.