PANAJI: India's most prestigious film festival kicks off in the tourist haven of Goa, promising to be a low-key affair with the glitz and glamour of Bollywood taking a back seat at the annual event.But lovers of cinema will have their hands full at the 39th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), with as many as 225 screenings of films from around the world, organisers said.The ten-day festival, hosted by Goa for the fifth straight year, opens with Peter Chan's "The Warlords", a Chinese war epic set in the 1860s. Chan is also chairman of the festival jury.Sixty foreign-language films and 80 Indian films are in the line-up, including Bollywood hits like "Jodhaa Akbar" and India's Oscar entry "Taare Zameen Par".India has looked to build a film festival along the lines of Cannes, turning to Goa to provide a picturesque backdrop to a celebration of cinema. But the festival has been criticised in the past for focussing on Bollywood while ignoring regional-language films from across the country. Things may be different this year."We do have Bollywood as part of the Indian section, but we also have some very interesting films, some of them from first-time directors, in the Indian programming as well," said Bhupendra Kainthola of the Directorate of Film Festivals.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
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