Fifth edition of Lonavala International Film Festival India kicks off virtually

The 5th

Lonavala International Film Festival India

(

LIFFI

) 2020 kicked off virtually recently. Considering the

Covid-19 pandemic scenario

, the organizer decided to take the festival on an online platform.

In its 5th year LIFFI is paying a tribute to Shri N. N. Sippy: Prolific Film Producer and Distributor and started screening some of his masterpieces. His movies like ‘Woh Kaun Thi’, ‘Gumnaam’, ‘Devata’, ‘Sargam’, ‘Fakira’, ‘Chor Machaaye Shor’ and others are part of the festival. Apart from these, films like ‘Papa Kehte Hai’and internationally acclaimed 'Mukti Bhawan’ are also included in the festival.

As quoted in the press release shared by organizer, Madhav Todi, Festival Director, LIFFI, says, “We have not let the pandemic break our spirit and hence are conducting the festival online this year. We wanted to continue our endeavor of entertaining and educating the people of India with interesting films and interactive master classes and workshops. This year we can’t organize a physical edition, though we have tried our best to put together an interesting selection for everyone to enjoy with their family from the comfort of their homes.”

The first four editions of the festival were very successful. Several esteemed artists and filmmakers from the Indian film industry like Shyam Benegal, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihalani, Sudhir Mishra, Ketan Mehta, Deepa Sahi, Rajit Kapoor, Mukesh Khanna, Kanwaljit Singh amongst others have graced the editions.

Several media school students (including from Mumbai and Pune) and film enthusiasts have benefited by meeting film personalities and attending workshops with eminent persons such as Rinki Bhattacharya, Mayank Shekhar,Joy Sengupta, Tushar Bhatia, Sandeep Soparkar, along with Ananth Mahadevan, and Viveck Vaswani.

The highlight of last year's edition was a tribute to the veteran film maker Subhash Ghai by screening nine of his films amongst others.